A$AP Rocky’s Stockholm criminal trial only lasted three days. Despite claims to the contrary, Rocky did testify on his own behalf, and he basically claimed self-defense or extenuating circumstances, detailing the way the two Afghan men were harassing him and his bodyguards. Rocky maintains that he did not use a bottle or break a bottle to beat up the one guy. There was a lot of back-and-forth about the bottle, almost as if there could have been different charges if the prosecution thought Rocky only used his fists to beat up the dudes.
Anyway, the trial has concluded and the judge told the court that he wouldn’t hand down a verdict until August 14th. Instead of keeping Rocky in Swedish custody for two more weeks, the judge gave Rocky permission to travel back to the US. Which Rocky did – he hadn’t been back on American soil in a month, and he flew out right away on his private jet. He arrived in LA in the early hours Saturday. Legal experts – perhaps Swedish legal experts? – say that because the judge went out of his way to release Rocky ahead of the verdict, it probably means that Rocky won’t be sentenced to two years in jail. Is there some kind of “time served” option in Sweden, because a month in custody is no joke. TMZ also reports:
All signs point to a not guilty verdict. Prosecutors in the assault case asked the judges to keep Rocky behind bars because he remained a flight risk. The judges had a middle-ground option — to release him from custody but order that he remain in Sweden, pending the verdict which will be announced on August 14, but instead they let him return to the U.S.
Fact is … a judge thought he was a flight risk a month ago when he threw Rocky in jail, even before charges were filed, so he’d be at least as much of a flight risk today … and that’s why it seems like it doesn’t matter anymore and that he’ll be found not guilty.
Our Rocky sources say he’s never going back to Sweden, and even though his position has been that race was not a factor, privately everyone in his camp thinks it was, and he probably does as well. It was smart of him not to take a stand on the racial issue, for fear of inflaming the judges.
The key to the case seems to be a green bottle. Prosecutors maintained Rocky hit the alleged victim over the head with it, but not a single witness supported the theory, nor did the video. You do see Rocky holding a bottle, but he says he did it to fend off the guy and put it down on the ground. Rocky does not have to appear in court for the verdict. It will be a written decision.
Yeah, obviously I don’t know how Swedish courts operate, but I have to think that if the judge gave Rocky permission to leave the country and Rocky isn’t required to come back for the verdict, the chances are very good that Rocky will either be found not guilty, or he’ll be found guilty and it will be like a “time served” sort of thing. As for the race issue… I’ve thought that there was a racial subtext to the whole thing and the insistence (from many quarters) that this was TOTALLY not about race just kind of convinced me that the opposite is true. I’m not saying this whole thing happened BECAUSE Rocky is black. I’m saying that it probably would have been handled a lot differently if he was white.
Speaking of white supremacy, Donald Trump tweeted this:
A$AP Rocky released from prison and on his way home to the United States from Sweden. It was a Rocky Week, get home ASAP A$AP!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
It’s so bad.
‘…it was a rocky week get home A$AP’
-President Donald J Trump ‘19pic.twitter.com/8Efcj2UMGm
— k.gene (@unorthoLOX) August 2, 2019
Photos courtesy of Backgrid and Avalon Red.
Meh, whatever. Sound like there was probable cause and after trial there is reasonable doubt so he will not be convicted. Fine. *shrug*
Considering the past 24 hours have shown again that America is a dumpster fire of white supremicist terror and the President is a worthless monster, he’d probably be better off staying in Sweden. 🙄
No kidding. My 20yo son and I were talking about the shooting yesterday and he was like “what happen if he gets re-elected?” My first thought was to say “then we’ll leave the US.” But I didn’t say that to him. Sigh.
And another shooting today:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/08/04/dayton-shooting-ohio-oregon-district-el-paso-shooting/1914440001/
The white supremicist President can get involved and try to intimidate a foreign government to release a rapper, but not lift a finger about gun violence in this country.
No sympathy for ASAP given his stance on Ferguson and BLM.
There are 3 possibilities here
1. That he will be found not guilty
2. That he will be found guilty and sentenced to a prison term that means no more jail time
3. That he will be found guilty and sentenced to a non custodial sentence
In his final submission to the court the prosecutor only asked for a 6 month prison sentence – but the court could go lower as there are different levels of assault.
His lawyers played a blinder, esp as everyone thought he’d go to jail. One of the witnesses changed her story from claiming to have witness Rocky use the bottle on the victim to she saw him holding the bottle but didn’t see him use it (which is backed up by the video evidence). She claimed she heard glass being crushed up (didn’t see by whom), so I would not be surprised if the victim did it to himself as Rocky’s lawyers stated that the injuries (scratches on his body) were not consistent with being attacked by a bottle. If Rocky didn’t use the bottle then there is no excessive force argument – which was the central part of the prosecution. Swedish law ran its process. From what I understand Rocky himself asked for community service so it seems they they are prepared for a guilty verdict.
In Swedish law, victims can get financial restitution from their attackers and this is clearly what the ‘victims’ game was. Start a fight, get someone arrested, play the victim and hope for a financial payout if they are found guilty. Police records show the ‘victim’ has a long history of violent encounters.
He had puncture wounds that required stitches. Not just scratches. I’ve seen the pictures.
Just clarifying- I don’t have a dog in this fight. I trust Sweden can handle this fairly without any input.
Ah thanks for that – the reports I read didn’t mention open wounds, he could have rolled over broken glass.
He claimed to have a broken nose AND broken ribbs, a few days after the incident. Doctors said the nose was broken But had grown together, an old injury and Xrays showed No damage whatsoever on the ribbs.
Just trying to get the most (money) out of it!
You are absolutely right about the two afgans!
This was their goal all along! They should be
in jail instead. One if them is by the way.
He managed to steal two jackets in two different
stores, after the Rocky incident!
I wouldn’t come back here either if I were Rocky.
I disagree on the racial element. I’m sure POC living in Sweden, particularly Afro-Swedes can educate us on racism in Sweden but I doubt that this case is an example of it. To me it’s about Sweden wanting to prove that you can’t get away with the law just because you’re a rich celebrity. He beat somebody up (not in self-defense), was filmed doing so and claimed innocence. The fact that Sweden doesn’t have a bail system, therefore not allowing rich people to just flee is actually a good point in my book. Also a foreign President acting like Sweden should have released him just because he asked to turned the whole thing into a circus.
Agree
Agree
These comments remind me of the pre-Megan Markle days, when British and Europeans used to insist that racism was an American thing, that no way were they racist and European countries were essentially a post racial paradise. Since other black people have come out and said they’ve had racist encounters in Sweden and Scandanavia, I’m going to believe them.
I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that neighboring Finland lost its collective mind when a black woman win a beauty contest. Sweden also has a pretty big problem with it’s growing right-wing movement, as well. There’s racial issues with immigrants, too. Does it have the exact problems America does? No. Sweden is still a mostly homogenous country of 11 million people, while America has 330 million people from every corner of the globe. The two can’t really be compared, especially with things like the bail system.
Rocky was accused of commiting a crime, there was video evidence indicating he might have, he pleaded innocence, and got a trial. Where did democracy fail here?
Obviously there’s racism in Europe (unfortunately), as probably in any continent. Never heard different here in Celebitchy. And sure racism is obvious with the way British media talks about MM and well Brexit itself is motivated at least partially by xenophobia. Still it’s really mind-blowing for me that Americans have some difficulty understanding what happened here and how the legal system works in most European countries. You can’t use “disproportional force” in self defense! That’s the law! The guys were total ass**** and let me tell you that I privately find it deserving if they would have been punched in the face. Still, everyone knows that is not legal to punch someone in the floor because they were annoying you. Someone annoys you and is following you? Call the police! Someone is too close to you? Sure, push them away. Hey, maybe you can even get away with a punch in the face. But no, don’t push them on the floor and kick them with two or three more people and then post it online as a big accomplishment. The legal system worked as it should.
Laura: Completely agree. In fact, “suspecting” a racial motive/ issue, without ANY PROOF or EVIDENCE of it, is, in this incident in Sweden, predictable and unwise.
I have paid no attention to this story,just heard about it but had other stuff going on,and saw the video last night-I really thought the two men were trying desperately to provoke ASAP Rocky. I also lived a time in Sweden and found the people (maybe not the system-then or now,IDK)to be not racist,but I was with a great group of young Swedish people and their families,some were POC too,and loved their country and expressed how they never felt not Swedish or anything because of their skin color.People were very liberal and non judgmental,I’m surprised that any of this mess even happened actually,but I do know the country is (or was ) so liberal that if a crime was committed they came down hard because peaceful living is considered a very important part of the culture and you had to do something really bad to get into legal trouble.That said,anymore,who knows,I have heard that Sweden is leaning much more right wing than in the nineties when I was there so who knows,I’m just glad he’s home,to me he looked to be innocent on video.
yup, well said. things are so out of balance right now, it’s gotten to the point that every time a POC commits a crime, all charges against them are racist. maybe in some cases it is, but let’s also stay calm and look at the evidence before crying wolf.
Regardless of whether or not Sweden would have found him innocent anyway, it is nauseating to watch that slob in the White House continue to behave as if this was some humanitarian crisis and that HE engineered a release. And no doubt Kim K will be lavishing praise on him for finding a solution and spouting more BS about how fulfilling it is to have become such a human rights crusader.
Yes after the way he acted towards the central park five, it is quite obvious he doesn’t care about POC. Rocky is being used as a way for Trump to say, see, I care about POC. We all know he doesn’t
I hope the president has this much concern for ANY American citizen that is detained overseas…doubt it though.
I’m swedish, and I’d say we do have a problem with racism. I believe that he was at least somewhat treated differently because of the color of his skin. But probably not consciously?
Most people here would never admit to being a racist and are probably not consciously acting racist. But I’m afraid that a majority of those people (me included) have a lot of preconceptions, and therefore act racist anyway while patting themselves on the back for being such good and open minded people…
Should also mention that i’m white and live in a big city, you’ll probably get a different picture from POC living in Sweden. Also, since English isn’t my first language, I’m afraid that my choice of words might be a bit off, please try not to miss interpret me…
ASAP Adrian will be very happy.
💯
Well, I don’t know about Swedish law, but in Germany the fact whether he used a bottle would be very important since it’s a different crime with greater punishment attached to it (usage of a dangerous object).
I’m an American POC living in Stockholm for the past 5 1/2 years, don’t agree on the racially motivated bent in the article above. Just projecting American problems on other countries. The racism here isn’t skin color based the same way it is in The US. There’s a much much greater prejudice against people of Arab descent and followers of Islam. Americans of all colors are looked upon extremely positively.