Seventeen-year-old rapper Chief Keef is in jail this morning after a Cook County juvenile court judge in Illinois ruled that the rapper violated his probation during an interview with Pitchfork in Summer 2012, Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Keef (real name: Keith Cozart) was sentenced to 18 months of probation in January 2012 after he was convicted of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon for pointing a gun at Chicago police officers. The terms of this probation required Keef to stay away from firearms, but last Summer the rapper was filmed holding and using guns at a New York firing range as part of a Selector feature for Pitchfork. Though nothing illegal happened in the footage (which Pitchfork eventually took down), the sheer presence of firearms was enough to raise red flags with law enforcement, and Tuesday morning the footage was used against Keef to prove he had indeed stepped outside the boundaries of his probation.
Dennis Berkson, one of Keef’s attorneys, reportedly told the court that Keef did not violate the spirit of his probation in the Pitchfork interview:
“Was it stupid? Yes. Did it violate the court order? No.”
According to Rolling Stone, Berkson is pointing the blame at Keef’s label, RCA, for setting up the interview in the first place. At the time of this post, no comment from RCA had been released.
As it stands now, Keef is currently behind bars and awaiting sentencing. He’s due back in court tomorrow, January 16.
Stay tuned for updates.
