Rapper Kodak Black pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal weapons charges that prevented him from performing last weekend at the Rolling Loud hip-hop festival, around which several violent incidents occurred.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres also granted the 21-year-old Black release on $550,000 bond with house arrest, although he faces other criminal cases that could keep him locked up.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Brown said Black was out on bail awaiting trial in a South Carolina sexual assault case — and that bail is likely to be revoked with these new charges.
Even with the possibility Black will be jailed there, Brown listed numerous other crimes the rapper has been involved in since he was a juvenile.
Black did not speak at the hearing.
In the weapons case, an indictment says Black on two occasions falsely filled out federal forms to buy weapons at Lou’s Police Distributors in Hialeah, Florida.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Brown said he received three of those — a 9mm handgun, a .380-caliber handgun and a semiautomatic Mini Draco weapon — one of which was left at the scene of a recent shooting in nearby Pompano Beach.
The rapper was arrested before his scheduled festival performance. Authorities are investigating three unrelated shootings in the Miami area with possible connections to Rolling Loud, two of them fatal. No arrests have been made.
