CRIME & PUNISHMENT
YNW Melly Linked To Potential Prison Escape Plan
YNW Melly’s long-spanning murder case just got a lot more interesting.
According to Complex, a Florida Sheriff’s Office accused the 23-year-old – born Jamell Demons – of attempting to plan a breakout from prison alongside another inmate named Nicholas Lewis using the help of Melly’s attorney.
The damning allegations were revealed on Tuesday (September 27) in court, and in the days after, the Broward County Sheriff’s General Counsel’s Office provided more information to the outlet about the “Murder on my Mind” artist’s current situation.
“On April 11, 2022, Broward Sheriff’s Office received a confidential tip regarding inmates Nicholas Lewis and Jamell Demons, both housed in the same unit at the Main Jail, planning an escape from jail by having Demons’ attorney bring in two handcuff keys to aid in the escape,” they explained. “Additional information provided by the source was that Lewis had a shank and drugs.”
Upon searching Lewis’ cell, multiple items were uncovered, including a six-inch shank, two razor blades, two lighters, and rolling papers. On top of that, the inmate was also reportedly holding both Seroquel and Klonopin pills, neither of which he has a prescription for.
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Melly’s cell search yielded less troubling results, although officers did find food from the commissary and what’s been described as an “excessive [amount] of jail-issued clothing.”
“The confidential source gave us two pieces of information. One of them [about the shank and drugs] turned out to be a hundred percent true,” Assistant General Counsel Christian Tsoubanos explained on Tuesday in court. “And when they did the search of Demons’ cell, they did not find the handcuff key, but it could have been that there was not an opportunity to bring it into the facility yet.”
After the news went public, the attorney for the mother of one of Melly’s alleged victims shared a statement, saying, “As an attorney for a victim, we strongly feel any attempts to escape justice point to guilt.”
“This matter needs to be fully investigated, including the attorney’s involvement. Certainly, there are times when informants and even government agents are wrong or engaging in misconduct, but we’ve seen so much in this case from rooftop stripper parties across to diamond teeth dentist needs, this is yet another chapter in what needs to just be finished in court.”
It’s also been noted that, during his time behind bars since 2019, Melly has made over three thousand calls to his girlfriend, Erran Barnett, resulting in his phone privileges being taken away as he only used his own personal identification number to make 22 of them.
One of the rapper’s attorneys, Raven Liberty, has been accused of handing out her phone login credentials to others so they can make “non-recorded video visitation” calls with the Florida native.
