Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, already in prison on a gang conspiracy conviction, has been sentenced in a contraband case in which he took a homemade knife from his girlfriend while she visited him at Rikers Island, prosecutors say.
The "Shmoney dance" rapper, whose birth name is Ackquille Pollard, was sentenced to one and a third to four years in prison Friday, to run concurrent with the seven years he's currently serving in the gang war conviction.
Pollard pleaded guilty last fall to conspiring with a drug gang responsible for several shootings. The plea allowed him to avoid going to trial on multiple other counts carrying penalties that could have put him behind bars for decades.
"Pollard has now resolved all of his legal matters and looks forward to getting back with his career," his attorney told reporters after sentencing Friday.
Pollard was already in Rikers Island awaiting trial in the gang war case when he was charged for allegedly taking a knife from his visiting girlfriend. Prosecutors said Kimberly Rousseau was visiting him in June 2015 when she reached under her bra, took out the homemade knife and handed it to him.
Pollard is best known for "Hot Boy," a gritty hit song with rhymes about gunplay. He and Chad "Rowdy Rebel" Marshall - another aspiring hip-hop artist who also pleaded guilty in the same case - gained notoriety with their performance in the "Shmoney dance" video, which has about 15 million YouTube views.
Authorities arrested Shmurda in late 2014 after he left a recording studio near Radio City Music Hall, only days after he performed "Hot Boy" for a national television audience on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Investigators found two handguns and a small amount of crack cocaine in a car in which he was riding, authorities said.
An indictment charged Shmurda and more than 15 defendants with a variety of crimes including murder, attempted murder, assault and drug dealing. Shootings by the gang left one rival dead, injured an innocent bystander sitting on a folding chair outside a Brooklyn home and caused pandemonium outside a nightclub in Miami Beach, Florida, authorities said.
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The court papers alleged that Pollard once fired a gun toward a crowd of people outside a barbershop in Brooklyn. They also said he was present last year during a confrontation between rival drug gangs outside a Brooklyn courthouse where shots were fired.
