Wednesday, June 21, 2023

... BUT APART FROM THAT, THE TWO CASES ARE EXACTLY THE SAME! (revised)

The New York Post and the Fox News website are trying to persuade their readers that the Hunter Biden plea deal demonstrates a two-tiered justice system -- not white vs. non-white or rich vs. poor, but Democratic insider vs. everyone else. They contrast Biden's light sentence with the treatment of a Black entertainer most Murdoch media consumers had probably never heard of until now, as a way of arguing that mostly white Republicans can't catch a break.

From the Post:
Rapper Kodak Black’s lawyer on Tuesday slammed the Justice Department for allowing Hunter Biden to plead guilty to federal tax and firearms charges in a deal that’s expected to carry no prison time and leave the first son’s record free of felony convictions.

Bradford Cohen, Black’s Florida-based attorney, decried Hunter’s apparent slap on the wrist, alluding to “2 tiers of justice” which he claims led his client to be sentenced to 46 months in prison for the same crime that President Biden’s son has been charged with.

“2 tiers of justice? Kodak was charged for the same crime. Got over 3 years. Mr. Biden will not serve a day. Feels right? Do FBI agents and federal authorities take cases personally?” Cohen wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday.

Black, a two-time Grammy Award nominee, pleaded guilty in 2019 to providing an incorrect Social Security number on a federal gun purchase form in order to buy three firearms from a Miami-area shop.

The ... rapper had a criminal record that would have disqualified him from buying the weapons.
Fairly or not, I'm sure the sentencing discrepancy was because Kodak Black had a longer rap sheet before he lied on that gun purchase form than Hunter Biden did before his false declaration. Below is a rundown of Kodak Black's legal troubles prior to 2019, from Miami New Times. It needs to be acknowledged that Hunter Biden was a child of privilege, while Kodak Black was very much the opposite, a poor person of color who had to make his own way in the world and became a success in the music business. Hunter Biden's sketchiest behavior was tolerated or shrugged off, while Kodak Black was regularly pursued by law enforcement. And Kodak Black is in part a victim of the War on Drugs, while Hunter Biden isn't.

Hunter Biden was a drug addict and a failed influence peddler, but when it came time to sentence him, he didn't have a record like this:
October 2015: Arrest for kidnapping, battery, and other charges
At 18 years old, Kodak Black was beginning to make waves in the Florida hip-hop world after his breakout hit “Skrt” debuted on Drake’s OVO Beats 1 Radio station. That's when he faced his first arrest in the spotlight. Kodak, born Dieuson Octave in Pompano Beach, was arrested for assault, robbery, kidnapping, false imprisonment, driving with a suspended license, and possession of marijuana after being accused of forcing several people into his car because he suspected someone broke into his Broward County home. He was released on bond soon thereafter.

December 2015: Arrest for marijuana possession
Just two months after he was charged with drug possession in addition to more severe crimes, Kodak was arrested in St. Lucie County for possession of less than two pounds of marijuana. He also was charged for having drug paraphernalia on him.

February 2016: Arrest for sexual battery
Kodak Black allegedly assaulted a young woman in Florence, South Carolina, in February 2016. The woman reportedly accompanied him to his hotel room after his show at the nightclub Treasure City. Soon after entering the room, she said, the rapper ripped off her clothes, bit her, and raped her. He was charged with criminal sexual misconduct.

April 2016: Arrest for weapons possession
Shortly after the Florence incident, Kodak was allegedly seen buying marijuana from a drug dealer; he then got in his car and drove away. When police tried to pull him over, he attempted to evade arrest and threw a gun from his car, according to the cops. After recovering a loaded .40-caliber Glock 23 pistol, they arrested Kodak for possessing a weapon by a convicted felon, possession of marijuana, and a number of traffic violations.

May 2016: Arrest in Broward County
According to XXL, Kodak was arrested again in Broward County, this time in connection with open warrants related to the previous charges of false imprisonment and armed robbery.

While he was in jail for this arrest, outstanding warrants for the criminal sexual misconduct case in Florence and the marijuana possession charge from December 2015 were brought to light.

August 2016
After three months in jail, Kodak was sentenced in August to one year of house arrest and five years of probation. He was also reportedly ordered to complete community service, anger management, and community control supervision programs.

However, before he could be placed on house arrest, the open warrants for the St. Lucie County drug possession arrest halted his release. In addition to that warrant, his charge of criminal sexual misconduct in the Florence case was changed to sexual battery, which carries a penalty of up to 30 years in prison.

September 2016
A month later, in September, he pleaded no contest to the St. Lucie possession case and was sentenced to 120 days in prison.

November 28, 2016
Kodak Black was released from a St. Lucie County jail and extradited to South Carolina to face the sexual battery charge.

December 1, 2016
As predicted by his lawyers, Kodak was freed from a South Carolina jail after posting a $100,000 bond for the sexual battery charge. He posted on Instagram that he was “happy to finally be going home to family and friends” and that he looked forward to clearing his name “in the very near future.”

Feb 2017: Arrest for violating house arrest, assaulting bartender
After appearing in court in Broward, Kodak was arrested for violating the terms of his house arrest related to the charges of false imprisonment in May 2016.

The decision to take him into custody was bolstered by his alleged assault of a bartender at Club Climaxx in Miami earlier in February. Charges weren’t formally filed against him, but the woman identified Kodak as the man who punched and kicked her at the club, and the police incident report was presented in court.

April/May 2017: Angry outburst, sentencing in house arrest violation
Between April 21 and May 4, Kodak was embroiled in a number of legal issues.

On April 21, he was accused of grabbing his anger management counselor by the arm after she threatened to call 911 when he refused to leave a session. She reportedly asked him to leave because he was “intentionally disrupting” the session by “burping repeatedly.”

Five days later, on April 26, he was found guilty on five counts of violating his house arrest.

On May 4, he was sentenced to 364 days in prison with the possibility of early release if he completed a life skills course. He successfully finished the course and was released in June after serving 97 days.

January 2018: Arrest for weapons and drug possession, child neglect
Despite some legal issues regarding child support for his son, Kodak steered clear of the courthouse for the remainder of 2017 after his release from jail. That changed January 18, 2018, when police were alerted to a live stream on Kodak Black’s Instagram feed. The video showed the rapper in his Broward home, surrounded by drugs and weapons with his child nearby.

He was arrested for grand theft of a firearm, two charges of possession of a weapon or ammo by a Florida delinquent adult felon, possession of cannabis over 20 grams, child neglect without great bodily harm, and two counts of parole violation, according to XXL.

A month later, his lawyers were able to get the charges of grand theft, child neglect, and possession of a weapon by a felon dropped.

April 2018: Sentencing for January arrest
Kodak Black entered a plea of not guilty and was again sentenced to 364 days in prison for the remaining charges stemming from his January arrest. He got credit for 90 days of time served in jail while awaiting trial, so he was released in August of that year.

During that stint in jail, Kodak seemed to be trying hard to turn his life around: He earned a GED, changed his legal name to Bill K. Kapri, and even tweeted about writing a book.

Shortly after his release, it was revealed he was also let off probation, truly cementing his freedom.

For a while, things quieted down for Kodak as he continued to release hit songs and collaborate with exciting artists.

However, things once again spiraled downward that spring.

April/May 2019: Arrest for weapons possession
Kodak Black and three others were apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents while trying to cross into Canada from New York. He was found with a Glock 9mm pistol and marijuana and was taken to the Niagara County Jail.

He paid the $20,000 to $40,000 bond and then walked out of the jail with a fan of cash covering his face.

Then, less than a month later, he was arrested on weapons charges in Miami. Just before he was set to take the stage at the hip-hop music festival Rolling Loud, he was apprehended by U.S. marshals for state and federal firearms violations following what was described as an “extensive investigation.”

The federal charge arose from an instance in which the rapper allegedly lied about the status of his criminal cases when he filled out official paperwork for a gun purchase.
On the subject of Hunter Biden's sentence, The New York Times reports:
The crimes to which Mr. Biden is pleading guilty, said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University and a sentencing expert, are ones that the average person is rarely prosecuted for because they are usually only brought along with more serious offenses.

“If these are the only offenses, most prosecutors are going to say it’s not worth a federal case,” Mr. Berman said. “They would say: Let’s not make a federal case of it for the average person because it’s not worth it to bring a case unless there’s reason to be concerned that there’s a public safety issue or the trust that everyone is treated equally under the law is at stake.”
Republicans insist that Hunter Biden's influence changed government policy when Joe Biden was vice president, but the most they can point to is then-Vice President Biden urging the Ukrainian government to sack a prosecutor who was seen by many governments around the world as corrupt, and who, in any case, wasn't even investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian firm Hunter Biden was affiliated with. More recently, Republicans have said the FBI has a document that says a Ukrainian has a tape that proves that both Hunter Biden and Joe Biden received Burisma bribes. Some of them admit the tapes may not exist.

I guess law enforcement could throw the book at Hunter Biden based on vibes, but that's not how anything works.

And as for the rapper:
Black was pardoned by former President Donald Trump on his final day in office.

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