A$AP Rocky Found Guilty Of Assault
• Hip Hop artist A$AP Rocky and two associates were found guilty of assault by a Swedish court on Wednesday but will face no prison time, capping a case that drew international attention — including from President Trump, who provoked a low-level diplomatic spat with Sweden after calling for the rapper’s release.
The Washington Post reports that the verdict is likely to quiet the outrage in the U.S. that was prompted by Rocky’s arrest and detention following a street brawl in Stockholm in late June in which the rapper was accused of stomping on a man after throwing him to the ground.
Rocky, 30, whose birth name is Rakim Mayers, had maintained that he was acting in self-defense, but the Swedish judge presiding over his case said the evidence did not support that claim. The judge did, however, conclude that the charges against Rocky were not as serious as presented by prosecutors and — given mitigating circumstances — did not merit a prison sentence. “This act has not been of such a serious nature that a custodial sentence is something that must be chosen,” the presiding judge, Per Lennerbrant, said after the verdict was delivered on Wednesday.
Rocky had testified during the trial that he had begged the accuser to back off during what he described as a random street encounter and asserted that he had only acted in self-defense. However, the court said video evidence and witness testimony did not support his version of events. A statement that accompanied the verdict said, “Based on statements from two witnesses, the court finds that the defendants were not subject to a current or imminent criminal attack. Therefore, they were not in a situation where they were entitled to use violence in self-defense.”
The men had faced up to two years in jail for assaulting the man, but their temporary release after the trial ended on Aug. 2 was seen as an indication that he would be found not guilty or be sentenced to time served. Rocky and his associates, Bladimir Emilio Corniel and David Tyrone Rispers, will have to pay a total compensation of about $1,300 to the victim, 19-year-old Mustafa Jafari, and court fees related to the trial.
