A Chicago rapper faces a fresh round of felony charges after he allegedly posted videos of himself with narcotics and guns to social media while on electronic monitoring for a gun and drug case.
In addition to drugs, sheriff’s office investigators found seven guns and $4,862 cash when they searched 28-year-old Dekari Bridgemon’s home, prosecutors said.
This isn’t the first time that social media posts have caused trouble for Bridgemon. In 2016, prosecutors showed a music video of Bridgemon holding a gun and a fistful of cash during a robbery to a judge who was about to sentence him for, coincidentally, robbing a family in their home. The judge gave him seven years.
Bridgemon’s defense attorney at the time called the video an “art form.”
Exactly two weeks after his parole ended in that case, Chicago police pulled over a car that Bridgemon was driving. During a bail hearing on October 8, 2020, prosecutors said police found a full bottle of codeine, 26 oxycodone pills, and a bag of pot in the car — two loaded handguns hidden behind a panel near its gear shift.
Codeine and promethazine are commonly sold as prescription syrup for treating coughs, sneezing, and cold symptoms.
They charged him with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and two felony drug counts. Judge Arthur Willis ruled that he could go home on electronic monitoring by posting a $1,000 deposit toward his $10,000 bail.
He’s still on electronic monitoring for that case. So, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office intelligence unit became interested when it heard that Bridgemon was allegedly selling narcotics from his house.
Sheriff’s investigators pulled up Bridgemon’s Facebook and YouTube accounts and saw him “displaying narcotics,” including pot and promethazine-laced drinks called “lean,” Assistant State’s Attorney Loukas Kalliantasis said Monday.
Investigators searched his home on March 30 and found 7 pounds of marijuana, 19 bottles of promethazine and promethazine-codeine, Adderall, oxycodone, and other drugs, according to Kalliantasis. They also found a gun in the living room and a bag containing six guns and a drum magazine loaded with 48-rounds of ammunition in the back stairwell, he alleged.
A woman in the house claimed ownership of the gun police found in the living room, so prosecutors charged her with that. Investigators swabbed the other guns for DNA and they’re waiting for a search warrant to get Bridgemon’s DNA for comparison, Kalliantasis said.
He told Judge David Navarro that the guns found inside the bag were similar to weapons that Bridgemon displayed in social media videos.
But, until the DNA tests are complete, prosecutors only charged Bridgemon with the narcotics “because he displayed it on social media,” Kalliantasis said.
Navarro ordered Bridgemon held without bail for violating bond terms in the pending gun and drug case. The judge said Bridgemon would have to pay 10% of a $250,000 bail to get out of jail on the new charges.
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