you are as guilty as they are because you are essential part of that crime when you went to spend that blood money on sneakers and jerseys you revealed to the court the value you place on the human life that was taken one of the men convicted in the 2018 murder of rapper XXX tentasion is now appealing his conviction and his legal team is focusing a lot of their attention on a major celebrity Drake we are going to explain the connections and the arguments as we sit down with Mauricio Padilla the attorney for the convicted killer
dedric Devon Williams welcome to sidebar presented by law on crime I'm Jesse Weber dedric Devon Williams who's behind bars for life for murdering rapper XXX tentasion is now appealing his case his conviction his sentence on the grounds that he did not receive a fair trial and this is in part due to what his attorneys say is the exclusion of evidence that pointed the finger or maybe pointed the finger at other people and one of those people whose name has come up is rapper Drake so I want to quickly get you up to speed on this
case before we get into these new allegations these new arguments maybe they're not necessarily new if you break down this case so last year three men including Williams were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 2018 killing of the star rapper and to be more precise they were convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery in connection with the shooting death of the 20-year-old artist whose legal name was J anroy now the jury deliberated a lot they deliberated for a little more than seven days before returning a guilty verdict this was for Michael Boatright
Dedrick Williams and Trayvon Nome now this murder occurred on June 18th 2018 outside of Reva Motorsports it's a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach it's a suburb of Fort lauderale Florida and XXX cion had just withdrawn $50,000 in cash from a bank he was leaving the store with a friend when his BMW was blocked by an SUV in fact surveillance footage from the scene actually captures this shocking moment as two Mass gunmen later identified as boat right and Nome emerged from the vehicle confronted the rapper at his driver's side window there is a brief but very
violent exchange with one of the men shooting XXX repeatedly afterwards they snatch a Louis Vuitton bag containing the cash that the rapper had just withdrawn and they speed away in the SUV Williams was accused of being the driver of that SUV and the Friend by the way who was with XXX tentasion during that attack wasn't injured but he witnessed the murder and the jury's deliberation was lengthy But ultimately They concluded that the evidence presented by the prosecution was sufficient it was beyond A Reasonable Doubt enough to convict all three defendants and that evidence included the
surveillance footage it included cell phone videos of the defendants flashing cash right after the shooting it included incriminating text messages from Boatright including one right after the shooting saying tell my brother I got money for the new phone and then just minutes after that sending in a separate text message a news article about XXX getting shot and I also have to mention the key testimony of the Trio's accomplice Richard Allen who claimed that he was a part of this robbery and he implicated the defendants he pleed guilty to Second deegree murder for his role in
this killing hey so before we jump into this story I have something I got to tell you about I host an executive producer show called crime crime with Jesse Weber and now it is launched on Spotify yes you can listen on the go and this show puts a spotlight on those really shocking Infamous controversial crime stories we go from beginning to end from the 911 call to the verdict we go through body cams police interrogations interviews with the players in the case we want you to have a full full understanding of the story from all
sides so you can follow Prime crime on Spotify right now just click the link below and in the description now as I mentioned Williams is appealing this decision and a big focus of this is on Drake it's also other issues that they're bringing up so I want to get into it right now and for that I want to bring on Williams defense attorney Mauricio Padilla thank you so much for coming on Mauricio Happy Thanksgiving thank you for coming on right afterwards um so I wanted to talk about this with you and we're going to get
into more specifics of the appeal but overall big picture big theme what are you and the rest of the defense Council arguing here well I am not arguing it I'm not his appell attorney I was the trial counsel so I'm just referencing what um Mi uh Mr patano which is his appell attorney has stated in the brief there is so many errors that it's you know it's it takes a while to even break it down um one of the one of the main errors in in my opinion in the case which I had to sit
through argue live it was the fact that in December of 2020 I file a witness list the state's reaction to that was to file a motion saying we want the court to strike all of his Witnesses which is that's not even uh something that's legal or that you could do you have to itemize who you want stricken you just can't shotgun approach and say I want all of his uh defense Witnesses uh stricken but the state attorney did that in a hearing that I had to defend you know myself to that in that motion the
court didn't grant that but the court instructed me to file a pleading which was the Nexus in my my defense Witnesses and what Nexus they had to my theory of Defense which I argued was inappropriate because at the end of the day you're just you're you're ordering me to give the state a blueprint of what my of what my defense is going to be but I was ordered to do it and I did it when prior to prior to um uh Mr enroy which I'll refer to him as X for for this um for this
uh interview because his stage name was XX which was the victim in this case prior to him being murdered he had posted on Instagram if anybody K if anybody kills me I'm snitching right now it's champagne poppy I'm paraphrasing but something to that effect right so imagine the deant said prior to his death if anybody kills me it's sh champagne poppy which is Drake's um Instagram name I laid out in extreme detail all of my defense Witnesses list which included many rappers because at the end of the day the victim in this case was a
rapper he had feuds ongoing public feuds with not only Drake but a lot of rappers that are either signed to OVO or related to Drake in some way including 600 Breezy which is a Chicago based rapper and a a rapper that's from Toronto by the name of um he goes by top five which is Hassan Ali um and I had to lay that all out in in detail the court was fully aware of my theory of Defense prior to that I file a motion to perpetuate the testimony of um Livingston Allen which goes by the
name of DJ academics because DJ academics was friends with X and had posted Long YouTube uh you know uh content regarding this beef he actually posted YouTube YouTube say uh a YouTube saying that he was on the phone with X discussing the issue and the beef that he had with Drake and specifically ex had had either said or posted something about about um Drake's mom and he had posted a picture of a drake lookalike with Sean on his face and he wanted DJ academics to post it on on his own site and he said I'm
not going to do that and in that conversation DJ academic says that you better be careful because even though like and I'm paraphrasing again even though he's not a gangster you may be pushing him as a reaction to that conversation X goes and says that he takes it out out off the the post off off the off of H his website or off of IG and he he says that his Instagram was hacked I laid that out in my motion to perpetuate the uh testimony which a motion to perpetuate testimony is when you have a
witness that that is relevant to your defense and that lives beyond the the the jurisdictional limits of the court and that you feel that you're not going to be able to bring them into court so I'm basically asking the court to allow me to go to California or wherever I have to go depose this individual and now with his deposition if he doesn't show up I could use it in my defense or in my case in Chief right so I did that argued it to the court and the court in a reaction basically said I'm
not going to Grant your motion to perpetuate testimony just take his Deo let's just take so okay fine I set a notice of hearing went and served um served Drake in his castle in Beverly Hills there's something that you mentioned and I want to talk about this so first of all there was this deposition that was taken of uh XXX tason's mother Cleopatra Bernard she testified that enroy had this ongoing feud with uh Mr Graham Aubrey Graham Drake She said this Feud with graham included throwing shots at enroy and lyrics from one of Graham's songs
you mentioned that controversial uh state that he made if anyone tries to kill me it was champagne Poppy the one the question I want to start with as we get into the Drake conversation are you arguing were you arguing or his Appel attorneys arguing that Drake was a part of this killing that he was the one who did this or are you arguing that it should have just been allowed you should have been allowed to present evidence to suggest there were other potential leads that law enforcement really didn't look at into this case so again
what what are exactly were suggesting are you sugesting that Drake had a part in it or that just he wasn't looked into and he chose a sloppy investigation and not a fair trial well well in in the brief and in what I was arguing in court is is the latter we are uh a defendant has every right to um defend himself and to show Reasonable Doubt wherever it may be and to uh fully investigate and articulate to a jury an alternate shooter defense or an alternate you know a defense for someone else you know committed
this crime am I am I going to sit here and tell you that that Drake was holding a gun and or or Drake but the facts as as as they are uh stated by by by ex's own mother um is that she knew about the about the beef with with uh with Drake and with Migos she knew about the violence between Migos and and her son where there was a violent episode um she knew about 600 Breezy which is a a known admitted gang member from Chicago going to South Florida and posting uh uh on
on on social media saying that he's blicked up which means that I have a gun and she was concerned about it she testified in in the depot that she discussed it with her son uh she testified that the reason that she wanted additional security with him the day he died was because of this beef with meagles and and and everything that we're discussing so it it was relevant and for for many months during the trial you know January February even February 7th uh of 2023 the judge is agreeing with me okay now there comes a
moment and a hearing um he he goes ahead and hires Drake hires after the judge enters a um a r show cause basically saying a purge date you have to appear for Depo on this day or I'm going to do a rid of bodily attachment he then goes and hires Brad Cohen a friend of the show friend of mine as well an excellent attorney and Brad files several motions motion to quash The subpoena um and he he files a motion for protective order we finally we go back and forth and the judge says in the
first time that that that Brad shows up to court he says you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna quash the Ral cause he's he's hired counsel you guys can communicate and figure out when this step was going to happen Okay so we go back and forth We can't agree to it for for various reasons and I'm not going to get into settlement negotiations on the show but we can agree we go into court February 24th I believe on his motions at that time James Beard which is the the process server that served um Drake appeared
uh as as a witness and I wanted to show video that he he took of the actual attempted service where it shows Drake's bodyguards or the people that are in front of his house refusing to cooperate it showed a a one of Drake's employees kicking the subpoena down the road that that leads to his mansion and and the judge didn't allow me to show that despite not allowing me to put forth that evidence the judge did a a 180 from telling me to figure it out coordinate it take the depot did a 180 told me
why are you involving him granted the motion for to um the motion um for protective order granted the motion to quash my my subpoena um allowed you know Mr Cohen to argue California law without having a California expert there and basically um kind of chastised me about you know why are you bringing them into it and as a matter of fact he even took we had taken the deposition of of one of um ex's relatives um regarding regarding this beef and she denied it and the court said in open court you know even you know
his relative said that it didn't exist and I said yeah well she's lying because the whole world knows about this beef so for for her to sit here and say that she didn't know about it is it's it's it's on her credibility so despite all of this he does a 180 he he he not only grants the motion for protective order basically saying that I can now serve him again okay andash quashes The subpoena but the state attorney sensing there's blood in the water says judge I'm going to renew my motion to strike all his
Witnesses okay or tennis no notice and he says I'm not going to do that but I am going to strike Mr Graham so he struck in the middle of the in the middle of the trial he struck Drake from my witness list which is completely inappropriate ex considering the history of the case talk to me real quick about why you think the Judge did this because in the Appel brief and correct me if I'm wrong there is an accusation that the court might have been biased because of Drake celeberty status correct me if that allegation
is wrong and and in your opinion why do you believe the court ultimately wouldn't allow the deposition of Drake I'll say that um judge usan was a complete gentleman to me and it was a pleasure to try the case in front of him I do think that he can made various reversible errors and I think from the beginning he made a lot of calls that were unconstitutional not legal this in this being one of them I don't want to speculate as to why but when you're dealing with someone like Drake which he's not a celebrity
he's a super celebrity he's not he's on he's like in the stratosphere of Fame so when when a judge does a 180 like that I'll I'll you know I'm not I'll let the the viewers or or other people figure out why they think that it happened but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna speculate as to why it happened but no no I I I get that I get that I I do want to ask you about this because this is another part of the appeal um and that is with respect to the testimony of this
gang expert which was excluded a pre-trial hearing and the defense my understanding wanted to call uh Jesse De La Cruz who they had claimed you to claim discovered Visual Evidence that Drake could have had ties to the same organization as a codefendant in this case Robert Allen and I believe the brief States Dr Cruz's research revealed photos of Mr Graham throwing the same gang signs as Allen and Allen is that accomplice who I mentioned before who testified against his codefendants but Cruz also revealed that people who knew Drake were allegedly seen in XXX tason's neighborhood
threatening him before he died the brief Reed social media post showed these same known Graham Associates were seen in onfroy's neighborhood threatening him just prior to the murder and they say even more revealing is this connection that Cruz made to Drake's song lyrics Because shortly after XXX was killed they the brief writes Mr Graham released a song entitled triple X with suspicious lyrics smsp X that's the only time I shot below the neck and Dr Cruz found another connection between the murder and Drake's lyrics in the song I'm upset the song I'm upset contains lyrics
regarding Louis bags for body bags the implication there being that Drake was referencing murder uh but ultimately Cruz was completely excluded from the trial and the jury did not hear any of his findings Mauricio I have that right and can you walk be can you emphasize that a little bit more can you explain that a little bit more yes okay so um Dr Cruz did profer to the court everything that you've stated regarding the song lyrics um the fact that that Drake was throwing gang signs that were the same gang signs that Allen was throwing
up and in in different social media posts um the the court strikes Dr Dela Cruz which is a known gang expert and well known in his field has testified over 150 times in trials they allowed the state to put their own gang expert detective Polo uh which which really bolstered a lot of what Dr Dela Cruz said uh regarding the necessity to to you know to bring out this testimony um I don't believe that it based on Dober which is the the case that we look at when when analyzing whether an expert is uh it's
if it's appropriate for an expert to testify I don't believe that that was a legal call uh I think it was error for him to do that and not allow us to put forth that testimony um and we we put up pictures of Drake with little Wayne throwing up a blood's gang sign and other other um uh evidence that Drake is out there flaunting gang ties we put forth evidence of Hassan Ali which is top five out there openly claiming on on social media in video that he's um uh that he's Drake shooter and part
of the theory of defense is to show listen even though these people are entertainers okay there's there's a you know a gang related portion of it there's a gang related side to it and um ex's own mother testified that she knew about this that she knew about when 600 Breezy uh uh traveled from wherever he was whether it's Chicago to South Florida she knew about it she talked to him about it so this case had more than ample evidence and ample reason to involve a gang expert to to be clear though you were allowed to
argue that someone else could have been responsible for this killing because you questioned cross-examined Allen uh on cross-examination suggesting that he had this link to Drake but my understanding is you're arguing now that the trial court had put limits on your cross-examination of Allen that that violated your client's rights am I misunderstanding that no you're you're 100% correct but and they they did it not only with Allan but they did it all throughout the trial with Allan Allan admitted that his father known drug dealer known known Firearms dealer as the brief States um Prov produced
at least one of the guns that was used in this when I asked him about his father and ties to Toronto and drug dealing the state objected and the and the judge didn't allow that question so it was a constant battle for me to try and and and basically do my job and show where reasonable down existed um with Allan with Detective CIO the I mean the problem here is also is that the state attorney on Direct of the lead of detective kersha which was the the lead detective in the case she asked do you
have any information that Drake was involved in this and that was before the court struck him so whatever reasons may have existed the moment that State Attorney opens up their mouth and and says that now now he's really at issue because now the opening the door you're opening the door to that coming in yes yes and um Not only was it an issue of of her her mentioning it with Detective Kio but she asked him you you actually were able to verif verify whether or not Drake was in South Florida at the time so in
cross-examination I asked wh why would you have to verify if he was if he was in South Florida why because he's a person of interest and then I had to further ask well what did you do to and I'm paraphrasing what did you do to to you know figure out whether he was in South Florida he says oh my partner checked social media so then I said okay so in a homicide case the best that Broward sh sheriff's office has for a jury is to peep his Instagram you know so it was basically breaking down
the poor job that that BSO did in their investigation and the tunnel vision that they had and the fact that none of this was in their report so you felt it important enough to check and verify whether or not he was in South Florida but you never memorialized it in your report and I'm not allowed to ask about it well did did he he also testified uh detective CIO that he learned that onfroy XXX had been attacked by members of me MOS right Migos is the rap group that's associated with Drake was that that came
in and and again you weren't able to expand upon that not only did that come in but when I asked him during in cross-examination isn't it true that the first time that the name meagles comes out in this case was a month after the murder in the first conversation that you yourself had with the cooperating codefendant Allan he didn't remember I had to refresh his recollection and right there in the in the in the in the in the transcribed uh conversation it basically showed that Allen the the the cooperator said the name Migos in the
first conversation that they had so it it basically showed that I wasn't making this up like it's not I'm not creating it the facts were there before I even ever alleged their involvement or filed a motion in court um they're they're they're checking to see whether or not Drake is in South Florida that was years before I mentioned it and is saying that is talking about migal to the lead detective a month after the murder this is years before I filed anything regarding my theory of Defense so it was just to show that this is
part of the case right and you and the argument is is that your client didn't get a fair Shake didn't get a fair Tri because you couldn't expand upon this and introdu this introduce this I want to move quickly past Drake and ask you a couple different questions about this appeal uh uh speaking about detective CIO I understand that there's also an objection that um your team has with him providing opinion testimony on cell phone data can you talk about that real quick what the issue was with Detective CIO there okay well the issue is
is that um uh Broward County did not list a a forensic expert okay and they tried to put forth expert testimony through someone by the name of caman and and through detective Kio and the court allowed them to give expert opinion as to to locations of cell phones and things that are specifically um left to experts because when you list somebody as an expert then that opens up the doors to dis to Discovery that we can take and take depositions of them and put us on notice to the specific um details that they're going to
um testify to as an expert that didn't happen in this case h and what they allowed was this indiv individual named named uh Canan they allowed him uh to basically put forth expert testimony and he put forth um like a like a a visual aid that he had prepared a week prior to his testimony okay we were ambushed with it and there he basically put you know a little dots where he where he testified where the cell phones were exactly and they allowed detective CIO to also give that type of of of of testimony now
detective Kio is extremely experienced I'm not going to take that away from him and and and this individual Canan as as well but just because your experience doesn't um take away the obligation of Broward County to do things correctly this is a murder case and a high-profile one at that there's a number of different other points that are raised uh in this appeal there's things like allowing prior bad acts to come into this trial allowing an out-of Court statement from defendant Nome which you argue was pres which uh his Williams defense attorneys are saying was
prejudicial if you can what what's another big area of appeal is it any of those two that you really think could be problematic why your client again again I I guess the idea is he deserves a new trial right yes yeah yes and and those the two things that you mentioned are pretty egregious the one of the Nome is is really shocking like they basically um on redirect of detective CIO asked asked them questions and brought in a hearsay statement regarding a completely separate murder investig ation that he that he says that he found without
authenticating the cell phone and basically said that Nome had told somebody in some dating app or something that he had buried money in his house and so the the judge buried money he could be catching life and a really uh incriminating statement but detective Kio didn't have to authenticate that they didn't have to show what cell phone it came from basically he just said I saw this in another case and the problem is is that my my my client is sitting at the same table with this individual that now the court has allowed this you
know extremely prejudicial information to come in so that was a humongous reversible era error in my opinion that affected not only my client's case but everybody that was sitting there at table including all the codefendants moving forward though what can we expect in terms of a timeline of appeal when will this be heard when will this be decided if a new trial is granted how does that work because now now it's about uh the timeline of events what should we expect you know what I I don't I don't practice appet law and those are questions
that I don't really want to give misleading answers to so so I'm not I don't want to give the wrong answers uh regarding app pellet I don't really do do a law but but at some point they're going to file a responsive B uh brief um and uh I think that the court could invite uh I think the way is nowadays the court can invite oral argument when before when I first started practicing law you had the right to to give oral argument I think now it's only By Invitation when the when the appic court
wants to hear your arguments um but yeah I mean listen when I read this what this was an 11-week trial the jury was out eight days it's not like if it's not like if the jury didn't think about it and came back in 90 minutes and and and convicted our client the jury struggled they had to have struggled because eight days is I've never had a case that that the jury's been out that long and uh and it was clear that they had questions and I really wasn't able to properly defend my client Mr Williams
did not get a fair trial when I read this I think there there's like like some kind of a defense mechanism when you try a case for 11 weeks that you start forgetting things when I read this it brought it all back and it it you know it reminded me of really how unfair unfair the judge was uh with Mr Williams and and the detrimental effects that it had for me to be able to properly defend my client listen Mauricio I appreciate you coming on here plead in your case uh pleading for these facts that
excuse me these arguments that your the his appell team will be making now to a higher Court uh breaking it down for us because it can get a bit uh complicated in the weeds but you really made it clear for us so thank you so much Mauri Mauricio podo Mr Williams lawyer thank you so much for coming on really appreciate thank for having me thank you so much J all right everybody that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on Apple
podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcasts I'm Jesse Weber speak see you next time [Music]
