Last week former Czar Entertainment CEO James 'Jimmy Henchmen' Redmond was convicted at his re-trial for ordering a hit on 50 Cent associate Lowell 'Lodi' Fletcher after Lodi and Tony Yayo randomly slapped Jimmy's then 14-year-old son on the street in New York [click here if you missed that].
Jimmy speaks out after his conviction...
In an open letter sent to AllHipHip.com Jimmy writes,
"This is America! I want to apologize to my family and my support system. Most importantly, to my son; When I asked you to intern as a 14 yr old at my office it was because I wanted you to see your father working and have a strong role model.
I wanted you to look up to brown and black people in boardrooms rather than in the streets. I was proud of the work I was doing. I never thought when I sent you on that errand, you would be surrounded and assaulted by 50 cent and four G-Unit grown men with guns for wearing a T-shirt.
My son I want you to know today - you did nothing wrong by coming to me and letting me know what happened to you. Any child that is under age should let their parents know if they are assaulted.
Sleep with a sound conscious knowing your father is not a murderer and you are not the blame for my incarceration. This is bigger than me or you. I to am a casualty.
When a trial isn’t about fact-finding to elicit the truth and condemn the guilty then it’s not about justice. My trial was about grabbing a headline and building a prosecutors personal career.
After three trials for this murder not one of the governments embellishing witnesses said that I told them to murder Lowell Fletcher; in fact, Brian McCleod, Khalil Abdullah and Jason Williams respectively stated they never had a conversation about the murder.
But even that consistent testimony would not deter credulous prosecutors from repeatedly trying this case.
Even after being phone tapped by a mendacious witness Muhammad Stewart for 2 years there was no evidence of a plot, conspiracy or “intent” (or mens rea) to commit murder for hire as charged.
I continue to maintain my innocence.
There is a sickness in this system. My trial was covered up and drown out with unrelated shootings, hip hop gang fairy tales and non-existing “rap wars” that never existed.
For any Black man being painted into that fantasy thug culture is a lethal concoction for a conviction and the prosecutors knew this. The prevalence of this injustice has sprung up grass root organizations to tackle systematic racism in the criminal justice system. Which result in mass incarceration and wrongful convictions disproportionately affecting black and brown people.
You would think black and brown people are the only ones that commit crimes because that is all I see. But this is America.”
