After announcing his intentions of going on a hunger strike, former rapper C-Murder has hired civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump to be part of his legal team.
C-Murder, also known as Corey Miller, is currently serving a life sentence behind bars for the 2002 murder of 16-year-old Steven Thomas, which C-Murder claims he did not commit. C-Murder has maintained his innocence since being convicted in 2009 and has even had the support of his ex-girlfriend and singer Monica, his brother Master P. and more.
Murder was identified by two witnesses who claim he shot and killed someone at a New Orleans club. But both recanted their statements, with one claiming investigators threatened him to name C-Murder as the shooter. Despite the recantations, the judge felt that was not enough for the rapper to be granted a retrial in 2019.
The Louisiana native announced his hunger strike on Aug. 5 with a statement through his publicist. In the statement, he accuses the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center of “improper treatment” of the inmates as they endure coronavirus. He said, “The COVID-19 positive inmates are put on a two week quarantine time initially but the prison adds new positive inmates to the dorm daily, which then extends the quarantine time two weeks each day that they add a new case.”
His attorneys Crump and Ronald Haley Jr. released a statement giving more insight into inmates’ conditions during the pandemic. They said it’s “horrifying” that the facility is not “enforcing the mask mandate or requiring correctional officers to get vaccinated.” The statement also claimed that the inmates are experiencing a “lack of social distancing practices, not getting access to proper hygiene and disinfectants and not receiving adequate medical care.”
In addition to that, the 50-year-old alleged there are 31 concealed documents that will prove that there was a DNA cover-up. He claims that while a match was found in the Combined DNA Index System, the District Attorney insisted it be thrown out and marked as forensic unknown.
Crump is best known as the attorney who has represented the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin and provided representation in other high-profile cases.
