Just how much trouble is rapper Nelly really in? Right now, everything is still very much up in the air as to whether or not he’ll face serious consequences for his most recent arrest. In fact, there’s still some disagreement about what he was actually arrested for.
Here’s everything we know right now.
On August 7, Nelly was arrested just outside St. Louis around 5 am. According to The Shade Room, the rapper was taken into custody and charged with possession of illegal substances. He also faced charges related to having no insurance.
The situation was explained by the police in a statement that mentioned that Nelly was also arrested for Failure to Appear on an old traffic charge. Nelly’s attorney came to his client’s defense soon after the scandal hit headlines.
The lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, spoke to TMZ to dispel rumors that Nelly had been charged with illegal substance possession. He also went on to make some serious claims about the officers who took Nelly to jail. Scott alleged that Nelly had been targeted by an out-of-line officer who was just being overzealous.
To some, it looked like Nelly’s legal team wanted to downplay just how serious the arrest was. However, many still believed that illegal substances were somehow involved.
The Sun reported that Nelly seemed glassy-eyed in his police mug shot. He was also smiling a little bit, which made some people think that he might’ve been under the influence.
Nelly’s Lawyer Doesn’t Expect the Cas to Go Anywhere
With so much mystery and disagreement about what Nelly was really arrested for, the question of whether or not he’ll do jail time looks uncertain right now. His lawyer, however, has stated that he is certain that the case will not proceed to court.
Scott said that he was “100% confident” that this case would “go nowhere.” He added, “And we will be asking for an inquiry into this officer’s conduct.”
The attorney explained that the officer’s pursuit of Nelly for no proof of insurance was way too much. He claimed that any other citizen in Nelly’s situation, who had an old warrant without being served notice, would have been told to resolve the issue and sent on their way.
It was also noted that because Nelly is required to travel internationally for his work, he regularly has to provide proof of no outstanding warrants. According to his lawyer, this even includes FBI checks, and it was stated that Nelly had no warrants. This was why the rapper’s legal team stated they were sure he would not be further punished.
However, if the case does continue against the lawyer’s expectations, Nelly’s shady past might come back to haunt him. We could see him face a bigger punishment than anyone has predicted.
Nelly’s Tour Bus Was Stopped in 2015
In December 2015, Nelly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of possession and was sentenced to one-year probation. What’s shocking about this conviction is how just much worse things could have been for him back then. This is because the charge he was convicted of was in connection with a really crazy arrest.
In April 2015, he was taken in on felony charges following a police search of his tour bus. The bus was pulled over by the Tennessee Highway Patrol after the cops noticed it was missing 2 required stickers, but what they noticed once they got on the bus was much more of a shock.
The first thing they noticed was a very distinctive smell from the bus. They went on to find illegal substances and equipment, as well as 100 small Ziploc bags.
A law enforcement rep later said that these were commonly associated with the sale of substances. This made the discovery a much more serious matter.
Then, things got even crazier. The police also found numerous firearms on the tour bus. One of which was a gold-plated firearm.
Nelly and one of his associates were charged and taken to County Jail. There were 4 other men on board, but they were not charged.
Nelly Refused to Take the Blame
Soon after the news of the arrest went public, Nelly’s attorney released a statement. He said that they were all very confident that Nelly wouldn’t be associated with the items that were discovered on the bus.
Not long after that, Nelly also released his own statement. In it, he said very similar things to what his lawyer stated.
He claimed that he felt that he needed to take responsibility for his choices. He followed this by saying that he also needed to be more aware of all the people he associated with and allowed onto his property.
It looked pretty clear what the rapper was trying to say. Nelly was pretty much putting all of the blame for the illegal items on the bus on his friends.
This wasn’t exactly the best look for a hip-hop artist at the time. He was later released on a $10,000 bond. His street cred as a rapper suffered afterward.
Monique Greene Further Damaged His Reputation
Unfortunately, some accusations in 2017 made things look a whole lot worse for him. After word spread, hardly anyone thought he could ever come back from this.
A college student named Monique Greene accused Nelly of SA. The incident allegedly took place before a Florida Georgia Line concert, when Monique was 22 years old.
The allegations came as a horrific shock to everyone. However, the story quickly took a surprising turn that meant that a lot of people actually forgot that it had ever happened. The case was dropped after just a week when Monique was accused of failing to cooperate with the investigations.
Monique’s attorney gave a pretty scary explanation about why Monique had not cooperated. Allegedly, it was because she believed that the system was going to fail her. In other words, she didn’t think she would be properly listened to anyway.
Nelly Denied All of Monique’s Accusations
The rapper’s legal team claimed that the real reason that Monique refused to talk was because her claims were untrue, which Nelly later backed up in his official statement. He said that it was time for him to personally speak up against the claims, which he described as disingenuous.
He said that he was focused on fully cooperating on every level of the investigation to allow law enforcement to get to the bottom of the insane accusations, which was why he had chosen to remain silent on the matter up until that point.
But Nelly also had a lot more to say, and some of what he shared seemed to paint the whole story in a different light. He used his statement to attack Monique’s lawyer, and he suggested that she was just out to ruin him.
Nelly claimed that the lawyer was involved in 2 cases against him and had also made damaging remarks about the police. He claimed that the attorney had labeled the police as incompetent and said that they had let Nelly bully them into ignoring the case against him.
Two months after the initial accusations, Monique decided to come for Nelly in another way. She sued him for SA and also for defamation following his comments.
However, other than his one-year probation, Nelly has never been sentenced and has never served time in prison. But if his recent arrest is taken further, who knows whether or not his sketchy past could come back to haunt him.
