American rapper Fetty Wap sentenced to six years in prison for drug trafficking

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American rapper Fetty Wap, known for his hit “Trap Queen”, was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday for drug trafficking by a federal court near New York, American justice announced.

William Junior Maxwell II, 31, was arrested at the end of October 2021 by the federal police (FBI), at Citi Field, a baseball stadium in the borough of Queens in New York, where he was to perform at a festival.

He pleaded guilty in August 2022 and is awaiting sentencing, which was handed down Wednesday by a federal court judge in Central Islip, Long Island.

The rapper was sentenced to six years in prison for distributing cocaine, in connection with a larger trafficking for which five other people had been arrested, including a prison guard.

Born in Paterson, in the neighboring state of New Jersey from New York, Fetty Wap shot to fame with his 2015 hit “Trap Queen,” a love story and drug deal in which he sings and raps. 

With this song, he had risen to second place on the Billboard Hot 100, a benchmark ranking in the United States.

Disabled since childhood by glaucoma, which had caused him to lose his use of one eye, he displayed his disability on the cover of his album entitled “Fetty Wap”.

According to American justice, the rapper was part “of an organization which distributed more than 100 kilograms of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and crack cocaine across Long Island and New Jersey”, between June 2019 and June 2020.

The drugs originated from the American West Coast and transited to the east coast via mail or hidden in vehicles, according to a statement from the federal prosecutor's office.

According to prosecutors, the searches resulted in the recovery of approximately $1.5 million in cash, 16 kg of cocaine, two kilograms of heroin, fentanyl pills and firearms.

After serving his sentence, Fetty Wap will also be subject to a period of supervised release for five years.