Meek Mill has proved himself to be one of the most talented rappers to come on the hip
hop scene in the last decade.
The 32 year old rapper from Philadelphia has had several massive songs in his career with
his most recent being “Going Bad” featuring Drake which has sold over 2,000,000 records
making it a double platinum song.
But despite being one of the most talented rappers in hip-hop right now, Meek Mill has
been making headlines for years due to his ongoing legal battles.
A lot of rappers seem to have this same issue but with Meek, it's a little bit different.
It has been made public numerous times that Meek Mill’s judge in his case, Genece Brinkley,
has had it out for Meek from the beginning and is making his legal process way more challenging
than it should be.
Curious on how this all happened and how it played out for Meek, well then we have you
covered.
Here is an exclusive inside look at the criminal history of Meek Mill.
Meek Mill’s first documented arrest happened on January 24th, 2008 when Meek was just 18
years old.
According to multiple reports, Philadelphia’s Narcotics Field Unit, NFU for short, obtained
a warrant to search Meek Mill’s residence after they claimed that Meek was seen selling
crack to a police informant.
While police were outside Meek Mill’s house preparing to raid the place, Meek returned
home from the local corner store.
Meek was carrying a weapon at the time but quietly tried to ditch it before confronting
the police, which later backfired on him because the police saw him doing this and eventually
detained him.
The NFU member, Reggie Graham, who made the arrest claimed that Meek Mill had pointed
the weapon at him before they detained him.
Meek denies these claims and actually said that the police used Meek’s head as a battering
ram to open the front door of his house.
Inside of the house, police found around $30,000 in cash that apparently belonged to his cousin
that sold kush. Meek Mill was ultimately arrested on various charges relating to drug dealing
and weapons possession.
He ended up spending several months in a county jail before finally going before a judge on
August 19th, 2008 where Meek Mill faced 19 counts in total.
The Judge in Meek’s case, Genece Brinkley, acquitted all of Meek’s co-defendants and
eventually found Meek guilty of seven charges.
Brinkley sentenced Meek to two years in a county prison and eight years of probation
following his release.
Meek Mill was released in early 2009 after agreeing to a deal where he would take five
years of parole in order to be released early.
This decision would cause a lot of problems in the future for Meek Mill.
Meek stayed out of trouble for over three years following his 2009 release but on October
31, 2012 that all changed.
While wrapping up a promo run in New York to promote his first album, Meek was pulled
over by police due to his extremely dark window tints.
When officers approached the vehicle, they claimed to have smelled kush coming from the
vehicle and when asked to search the car, Meek refused.
Meek ended up being arrested for not allowing the police to search his car.
The cops then impounded Meek’s vehicle and held him in a holding cell overnight.
Meek was eventually released the next day but claimed that the arrest made him miss
out on a lot of money in an endorsement deal with puma.
The losses were reported to be a payment being reduced to $650,000 from the original $2,000,000.
Yikes!
After Judge Brinkley got word of Meek Mill’s arrest, she ordered Meek to appear in court.
During this hearing, she ordered Meek two complete two drug tests where both turned
out to be clean.
But despite being clean, Brinkley still charged Meek with a probation violation.
The punishment of the violation was revoking Meeks ability to schedule and perform shows.
This punishment is weird to me because it’s basically saying “hey, you can’t show
up to work anymore” which if Meek worked a normal 9-5 job, would ultimately lead to
him being fired.
This situation didn’t end there because on December 18, 2012, Meek allegedly violated
probation again after continuing to book concerts after being told not to.
This led to Brinkley putting Meek on restricted travel which forces Meek to stay in his hometown.
3 months after this decision was made, Meek was due into court again after Meek allegedly
left Pennsylvania without notification.
The excuse he gave to the judge was that his schedule can change very quickly and asked
for leniency which he eventually got because Brinkley let this one slide with no consequences.
At the end of this hearing, Meek requested to get a new probation officer after claiming
to have problems with the one he currently has but Judge Brinkley denied this request.
On June 28, 2013, Meek Mill was required to appear in court once again after he was accused
of making comments about his probation officer on Twitter that led to Meek’s fans sending
threats to the probation officer.
During the hearing, Meek’s lawyer and Assistant District Attorney, Noel An Desantis, got in
a heated argument over these claims and eventually ended with Judge Brinkley ordering Meek to
attend etiquette classes to teach Meek Mill how to conduct himself online and claimed
its “more important than any concerts he might have.”
Over a year later on July 13, 2014, Meek had a probation hearing that lasted a lengthy
four hours.
During the hearing, Brinkley aired out everything Meek Mill was allegedly doing wrong like failing
to give his probation officer a working number, being disrespectful to his probation officer,
failing to get a judge’s permission before booking out of town shows, and a few other
things were mentioned as well.
This hearing ended with Judge Brinkley determining that Meek Mill was in technical violation
of his probation and ended up revoking Meek’s probation and sentencing him to three to six
months in jail, with an additional five years probation following his release.
Meek was eventually released on December 2, 2014 after serving almost 5 months.
Over a year after being released, Meek Mill was once again found guilty of a probation
violation by Judge Brinkley after failing to report his travel plans.
This violation resulted in Meek being banned from working and performing until his sentencing
which was scheduled for February 5, 2016.
Fast forward to the hearing, Judge Brinkley sentenced Meek to 90 days on house arrest
which would begin on March 1, 2016 and end on June 1, 2016.
After he was released, Meek had a lavish welcome home party at Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Meek Mill continued to stay out of trouble for over a year but on March 15, 2017 while
at the St. Louis Airport, Meek Mill was arrested and charged with assault after an airport
employee attempted to get a picture with Meek.
The police let Meek go moments later but was still charged and summoned to appear in court
on a later date.
This case was ultimately thrown out in October later that year.
Months later, Meek Mill was arrested yet again while in New York for his appearance on “The
Tonight Show.”
According to multiple reports, Meek saw some kids riding dirt bikes around the city and
kindly asked if he could ride one.
Meek’s cameraman was on Instagram live at the time and captured a helmetless Meek Mill
popping wheelies on a dirt bike throughout the streets of New York.
The next day, the NYPD tracked down Meek Mill and arrested him for one felony count of reckless
endangerment.
This charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor and eventually got dismissed completely but
Judge Brinkley was not happy about this.
On November 6, 2017, Meek was required to appear in court for another probation hearing
and it did not go well for him at all.
Judge Brinkley ended up sentencing Meek Mill to two to four years in a state prison after
getting arrested for assault and reckless endangerment in the first place despite all
the charges being dropped.
She stated "I gave you break after break, and you basically just thumbed your nose at
this court."
while handing down this lengthy sentence to Meek.
After this shocking news hit the internet the hip hop community became outraged and
many of his peers including Jay-Z and Kevin Hart spoke out about how ridiculous his whole
legal situation is.
A few weeks after sentencing, Meek’s legal team filed an emergency bail motion in the
Pennsylvania Superior Court that asks for Meek to get released on bail immediately.
Judge Brinkley ignored all the requests made by Meek’s legal team but eventually acknowledged
the requests about a month later by denying the bail request after claiming Meek Mill
is a “flight risk” and “a danger to the community.”
It’s also worth noting that while all of this was going on, the media revealed that
the FBI has been investigating Judge Brinkley since 2016 and had undercover agents monitoring
Meek’s court hearings.
This investigation started after Meek’s attorney made claims that Brinkley had shown
bias by asking the rapper to leave Roc Nation and to return working with Charlie Mack.
After Brinkley got word of these claims, she threatened to sue Meek Mill.
Then on February 14, 2018, Meek’s legal team filed a petition to get his sentencing
and conviction vacated after Reggie Graham, the officer who arrested Meek back in 2008,
had been added to a list of cops who had a history of racial bias, lying, and brutality.
This petition also included a statement from a former Philadelphia Police officer who said
that Graham lied about Meek aiming a firearm at him during his arrest, a claim that Meek
Mill has denied from the start.
Less than a week after this petition was filed, Judge Brinkley granted Meek a post conviction
hearing that went… nowhere.
But on March 15, 2018, Meek received another big break in his case after the Philadelphia
District Attorney's office submitted a filing that revealed that they did not oppose to
Meek’s bail petition which hinted that Meek will be released soon.
5 days later, Judge Brinkley’s personal attorney, Charles Peruto Jr. announced that
they will be suing Meek Mill’s management and legal team over the claims they made about
Brinkley trying to extort Meek.
After this was made public, Meek’s legal team filed a motion to have Judge Brinkley
removed from the case but before any action could take place, Judge Brinkley was able
to deny Meek’s request to be released during the April 2 court hearing which basically
confirmed that Brinkley has now turned Meek’s case into a personal vendetta.
Two weeks later, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office recommends that Meek should
be released and on April 24, 2018 this happened.
Meek was finally released from prison.
A day after Meek’s release, Judge Brinkley revealed that she refused to remove herself
from Meek’s case and claims that she has given the rapper a fair trial the whole time
and will continue to do so.
Meek’s legal team then starts to bring to light that Brinkley was in a car accident
in 2016 where she apparently suffered severe brain trauma which could possibly affect her
ability to perform professionally.
His legal team also brought up that Brinkley allegedly laughed at one of Meek’s witnesses
early on in his case but Brinkley denied all claims.
The case went pretty silent for quite some time but then on July 24, 2019, over a year
after his release, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania granted Meeks appeal and overturned his 2008
conviction as well as ordered that the new trial will not involve judge Brinkley.
The hearing then took place a month later on August 27, 2019 and ended with Meek Mill
pleading guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge which finally puts an end to Meek’s 12 year
legal battle.
This is Meek Mill’s first time experiencing complete freedom since he was 18 and it was
long overdue.
Meek Mill has now launched a prison reform movement and is really focusing on helping
people who are in similar situations that he was in.
I hope Meek continues to stay on this positive path and can help put an end to the probation
trap that many Americans tend to find themselves in.
Well there you have it, the criminal history of Meek Mill.
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