Prosecutors Want To Hold Big30's Record Deal Against Him In Pooh Shiesty Kidnapping Gucci Mane Case

Big30, the rapper arrested as part of the Pooh Shiesty kidnapping case, has a big record deal on the table and in a new legal brief, prosecutors are arguing that’s a reason why he should remain locked up. Big30 is one of nine defendants in the case. He, Shiesty, Shiesty’s father Lontrell Williams Sr., and six other men are accused of holding Gucci Mane and others at gunpoint in a Dallas studio, robbing them, and forcing Gucci to sign paperwork releasing Pooh from his contract with Gucci’s label. A magistrate judge in Tennessee ruled last week that Big30 and Williams Sr. should be let out on bond while the case plays out $100,000 for Big30 and $250,000 for the elder Williams. But prosecutors appealed those decisions, and both remain locked up while Texas District Court Judge Ed Kinkeade decides their fate. On Monday (Apr. 13), prosecutors filed briefs arguing that the Tennessee judge got those decisions wrong, and that both men should remain behind bars pending the case’s resolution. One of their main arguments when it came to Big30 had to do with a record deal he has pending with Connect Music Group. According to testimony at last week’s hearing from Kemario Brown, the Senior Vice President of NLess Entertainment, Big30 is in the very final stages of negotiation with Connect Music Group for a seven-figure, two-album (one album and one option) deal. Per the terms of the contract, Brown said, Big30 would have around 145 days after signing to complete an album While that may be a major opportunity for Big30, prosecutors see it instead as incentive for him to flee — whether the deal collapses as a result of the case, or if it ends up happening regardless. In Tuesday’s brief, they write: “The deal thus cuts both ways: if the defendant believes the prosecution will prevent him from fulfilling his contractual obligations and the deal collapses, he loses the single financial incentive the defense claims tethers him to the jurisdiction. “If, on the other hand, the deal remains available, the defendant has access to seven figures in resources with which to flee—resources that dwarf a $10,000 bond payment [the amount he’d have to pay for his $100,000 bond]. Either way, the unexecuted deal does not favor release; it illustrates the inadequacy of financial conditions alone to mitigate this defendant's flight risk.” The record deal was not prosecutors’ only argument for keeping Big30 locked up pre-trial. They mention his alleged role in the crime: retrieving a gun on Pooh Shiesty’s orders, filming Gucci signing the paperwork releasing Pooh from his deal; blocking the studio door so security couldn’t get in; and, when arrested, having multiple guns in his possession and destroying the phone on which he’d recorded Gucci signing the paperwork. They also mention Big30’s alleged affiliation with the Grape Street Crips

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