or maybe six months. Yeah. Yeah. And um and and of course, you know, they wanted him to cooperate, which Luchi would do a life sentence before he would say one word on anybody. Yeah. So I I think that people were super surprised. We heard no statement from him. Nothing. Um, even when they claimed that there was an attack on him from YSL members in the jail, still nothing, never told on anyone else. Mhm. Had a murder charge and essentially got out pretty much on time served, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, he he did a little bit little bit of time. Um, but the big thing is that we got the district attorney. The big thing we wanted was her to write a letter to the parole board saying no objection to him getting early released. That was the That was the lynch pin that we fought for. Oh, that's Fonnie Willis. Okay, we got to get started because I got to get into all this. This might take a while. All these cases I feel like I've covered so much. But anyway, uh welcome to the another episode of Off the Record Podcast. Woody Jack academics in the building. I'm here with the billiondoll lawyer himself, one of hip. Listen, they say heroes, some true heroes don't really wear capes. And this guy wears I can't imagine how much that suit costs. Okay. Um, I'm here with one of the greatest lawyers in the land, representing some of the biggest um, hip-hop artists in the world, and he's done a fine job with almost everything I've ever seen him associated with. I'm here with none other than Drew Fillin himself, man. How you doing, brother? Great to be here, man. Thank you so much for having me. Great to have you, man. Um, tell me if I'm wrong, and I don't know if lawyers kind of are chummy chum me like this, but I've said this on my stream a lot of times. I said there's like a big three, right? You know, I know Kendrick says he don't like the big three, but there's a big three of lawyers. And I say from the Atlanta area. That's where you operate, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I'm everywhere. Okay. Well, we see you everywhere now. You're in New Jersey. Um I say we got Drew Finland. Uhhuh. Brian Steel and Steven Sau. And I say that's the three. There might be others. I don't want to slight anyone, but those are the three. Every time I'm seeing huge cases and I'm seeing favorable results, I'm like, "These are the guys you need to call." Um, am I right right about right with that? Well, those are those are great lawyers. Um, I'm a cheerleader of everybody that that does this profession. Um, as as we talked about earlier, you know, I was president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. So, I'm a criminal defense lawyer, criminal defense lawyer, man. I I bleed for the women and men of my profession. So, those are great lawyers. Um but but my community is filled with other as well really dedicated uh hardworking people um that do cases that you know you and even I don't know about but they're in the trenches every day. Um and uh they're fighting tough murder cases, not getting paid. I'm a big supporter of public defenders. Um so I kind of put um I call myself the socialist lawyer. I kind of put us all on an equal plane. And uh if things work out well for some of us, then that's that's cool. Um, I I celebrate everybody though. But I hear you. Yeah. Yeah. You're not going to do that here. Like I I've seen you work some magic and um we're going to get into it. Uh I I do want to kind of get started with your history though because how does one and I do know a bunch of you know aspiring um attorneys who they want to be the person that's repping the stars. How do you get to elevate to that position where the rich famous, the stars or rappers or whoever else, you know, usually celebrities, they're calling your line to have you defend their freedom, something they probably cherish the most. How do you get to that point? Yeah. So, that's that's a great question and I give speeches all over the country and I always get asked that question. I think a few rules. Um, one, you got to try cases. Like, you got to be in front of the people and you you have to be savvy in front of a jury. You have to be somebody that can be a true persuader of people and all people um not just lawyers um just not the media but really talking to 12 people trying to convince them that somebody that's charged with murder with five eyewitnesses is not guilty of those charges. And so you got to be a great persuader of people and the only way to do that is to get in there and from the moment you have an opportunity to try as many cases as possible. The other thing is um don't try to be one of the famous people. Uh like when you and I talked today, yeah, you know, we're going to talk u about uh Gucci. To me, he's just Rick. Um COP, I tell him all the time, I don't even know who that is cuz you're Henry's son, Pierre. Coach Gay, man, you're Kevin to me. Um you got to remember that what everybody, anybody that's famous, you know, little baby is just Dominique. Um and I talked to him on the way over here. It's Dominique. Um you have to relate to them as the person they are, not the performer they are. they'll they rather you do that. They don't want you to treat them as a performer. And the other thing I tell lawyers is like if you're going to represent people in the music industry, man, don't sit there and, you know, fly to Dubai so you could take Instagram pictures and look like a rapper. Um that's just stupid. Yeah. Um the great people in this industry, they want like you to be a great lawyer. I mean, these people that are successful in music and in hip-hop, they're freaking brilliant. Like I can't finish roses are red, violets are oh blue. Yeah. But man, they could just string together over and over again. I saw on one of the shows that um one of my favorite people, John Kirk, the baby, he was on some show and he just started freestyling for like 3 minutes. I don't know, something crazy. No, no, he's good at that. I I called him up and I'm like, you you're crazy. You're so amazing. And I know because of our relationship that that guy's got like an IQ off the charts. And so they all share that in common. They're all young and brilliant people. And so they're looking at your lawyer skills. They are observing whether or not you have a crisp cross-examination, whether you communicate effectively to a judge. So you got to be the best lawyer you can to pass muster with those folks. You bring up a very interesting point. So like what you're describing to me um like you have you have a charisma about you, but I don't I think you're exactly right. you don't try to just be be around rappers and don't try to be in that lifestyle. I remember there was a a lawyer and I think this is like the opposite of that where I guess you have to walk a fine line because the opposite of being on too far on the other side. I remember Max B and Max B like he did an interview with his lawyer and his lawyer like his lawyer kind of felt like the rapper to him then he got 99 years and then people were like yo the lawyer was cool with the interview but what happened in court? How do you how do you um prevent from being the person who's maybe media-wise you're getting talked about, but you're you're you're like chucking these cases because again, the results does matter in your business, right? Yeah. I And and you know, that's another thing I talk to young lawyers about all the time. Like when all said and done, it really depends how effective you are in trials. Like even if you're going to ultimately get a great deal, you get a great deal if you're a great trial lawyer. It's not negotiating skills. It's your ability to win. People are scared because they know, oh this may take three weeks. It may take three months. It may takes take a year, but this dude's going to come in and win the case. That's how you get a great deal. And the way that you're effective as a lawyer is communicating with everyday people. So, it doesn't really help me to go to a club and hang out with rappers because that's not how my juryy's going to be. So, when you and I go to a restaurant, you're going to see you're going to go like, "Man, what's up with Drew? He's not even talking to me tonight. He's talking to the servers." because the server who's going to be on the jury. And so if somebody's doing construction at my house, I'm talking to them constantly cuz I kind of want to know who they are and what what appeals to them cuz that's what's going to help me win. And it's not going to help me win to just hang out with a bunch of rappers at a club. Doesn't help me at all. It it it it's a little bit of foolishness from my perspective. Yeah. Uh what do you what was the first notable case that involved a musician that you remember having um represented? Let's see. Like an actual musician. Yeah. Um so I was fortunate enough to get like kind of a string of famous people. Um I got to help Shaquille O'Neal when I was young. I got to help Dennis Robin. So they were famous. And then the famous Are these criminal cases or it might be civil? Yeah. And do you do civil only like high level civil cases will be choosy but I got to help them in some situations. So things started rolling in and um and then uh I started representing Gucci. Yeah. And then that was for the gun case, right? Yes. But first Harlem Nights. Okay. Okay. Yeah. First it was the fight at Harlem Nights. Uh, and then, uh, I met a young guy behind a plexiglass window that was charged with a case that had kind of an unknown lawyer that his mom had paid hardly anything for, but, he was starting to get a little gravitas um, named Kiari Cifphus who's offset. And then the Migos thing started and and so it was Gucci, it was Migos, and then it was Waka. I went to trial in his case, got a not guilty in his gun case. And then as we said at the office, we couldn't keep up with the phone calls after that. And then the out of state phone calls started and since then literally we get phone calls on everybody. Even if it doesn't ultimately become our case, we just hear from people on cases and we're happy to just talk to them. It's been non-stop. Do you turn down those cases like now like these days? Is it a mutual thing where they might not go with you and you might turn it down as well or do you usually take any case that is offered? So that's a great question. um it has to be uh the way we want to do the case. So, we're not going to jump in a case last minute and we know what it takes because we we have bandwidth, right? We're five lawyers and we think we have a method of how to win cases and then we'll partner up with some people in other parts of the country and so it has to be our way or the highway. Um and so we we need a lot of time to work on a case um because from the beginning we're developing the case um so that ultimately we can win the case and then there's finances that are involved and they're generally non-negotiable. Oh really? Um I I've I've heard lightly about that. I definitely want to um prow a little bit into that. But for example, let's stick with, you know, you made a very important point. And by the way, of course, for everybody watching, we're going to get into some of the the names of who's represented. Of course, also Durk, who is currently, um, in federal custody, which a lot of people are interested in that case. But um for example, if it was a situation like we just seen recently um in Diddy's case, uh Brian Steel just got added as a co-consel and he's kind of added like pretty much two weeks toward 3 weeks before trial. Could you work with a situation like that? Because again, that doesn't seem as Brian Steel is obviously just seen what he did, but we don't know if he's going to run the show. It looks like they probably already had like some plan already in motion. What would you have done in that situation if they asked you? Well, I know a lot about that case. We'll just leave it at that. Um Oh, they holling at you. Yeah. Well, we I Diddy got the money now. Come on now. Come on. Yeah, I don't kiss and tell. Um but I know a lot about that situation and that and that case um from from way back and and we all do things differently and and so I like to get a case in the beginning in the inception and influence the trajectory of the case. Um, and as you know, cuz you uh I admire your your your knowledge that you've gathered, which is better than probably 90% of the lawyers I know. Um, you know that from the beginning, you want to influence what your type of motions that you want to file because your motions are dictating like the direction you're going to take with the case. Um, so for example, you see a motion eliminate. Emotion eliminate to me is like when you buy a game for your kids and it gives you the instructions on the rules of what you can and can't do. That's what emotional limiting is. So I want to influence from the beginning the rules that I want to apply to the case because I know that vision I have for 9 months or a year down the road. And so for me personally, it's really tough to get in a case at the end. Plus um there's so there's just so many reservations at my restaurant. Um you know, my practice and and so it's difficult for us to just jump into something because we're booked up. Um we're booked up for for a while. And usually if you get a case like somebody calls me right now, the case may not go to trial for a year or two. Um so it would be difficult. U but if I'm going to do a case, it's going to be the way that that I want to do it and it's going to be the team that I assemble. Um although I will tell you that uh I think uh Mark Ignolo, Tenny Garagos are are great people and they're super dedicated, man. They are they have given their life to the case. Literally, they've given their life to the case. Yeah. I'm interested to see how that get that that turns out is I always wanted to ask this and I'm guessing a lot of people watching are probably thinking the same question. And we we got to hear from a uh you know a top tier criminal illegal uh um expert out there. You if say I kill somebody if and I hire you. Yeah. Should I tell you I did it or or should I just be like this is the charge and you go from there? Like do do you do you like for the person to tell you the truth like all right listen no cameras on this attorney client privilege did you shoot him like because you might be able to use that knowledge to form a defense or do you like to just operate with what's charged and what's the evidence and figure out how you could deconstruct that? Yeah. So that that's a great question and um get it asked all the time and it really doesn't play that way. Like no one comes in and they'll say like, "Hey man, I just wasted a dude, but let's say I didn't do it." Um there's there's usually what I call black and white cases and then gray cases. A black and white case is like, "Hey man, I want to hire you for this murder case, but I got to tell you, I was 75 miles away at the time and I have seven witness to say it." Tried those cases. Okay. Then there's the gray cases where they come in and they're like, "Hey, Drew, I wasted that dude. I mean, I shot him and I shot him good, but you know why I shot him? because that dude threw three punches at me and then reached in his pocket and I knew he was going to pull out a knife or a gun. That's a great case. And so someone under those circumstances is going to tell you that they did it, but affirmatively that their offenses, but here's the reason why they did it. Um, so I personally never had anybody come in and do the whole like I did it, but let's come up with some story. Oh, be like, "Yeah, I crashed out. I just crashed out." Yeah. you know, no, normally it's a self-defense case when someone comes in and they tell you they did it. Or I've done the accident cases where, yeah, I did it, but it was an accident. Let me explain to you, you know, the gun went off on accident. You know, that kind of thing. So, they'll say they did it, but there'll be an explanation. And that kind of goes to other cases as well, like a fraud case. Yeah, I did it, but my accountant said it was the correct thing to do. Are there ever cases where you look at the allegations and you're like, "Yeah, I want to know parts of that." uh in terms of it could be just heinous acts that the person's accused of um it could be child molestation, it could be sex trafficking, whatever it could be, but you're like, you know what, this might end up being some high-profile stuff. I this could be a reputation hit if I'm the person defending you and especially the evidence is kind of seems already super compelling and overwhelming. Yeah, I don't want to touch this. Do you make those decisions? Yeah. So, so I I always say that we don't turn away a case um because of the nature of the charge, just like we don't turn away a case because of the of the race of the person or the ethnicity or the sexual orientation of them. In like fashion, we don't look at the charge. Um because I think that's the downfall of our profession. Um respectfully to people, I mean, like I said in the beginning, man, I'm a I'm a criminal defense lawyer, criminal defense lawyer. support my sisters and brothers that do this all over the country and stand with them in all their cases, whether they're public defenders or doing high-profile work. I just think the system topples when we turn down cases. That being said, if you're going to come into my office and you're going to tell me this is how we're going to run the case, and a lot of con people do this, okay? Then you can get on your Nikes, open the door, and run away as fast as you can because I'm not going to represent you because again, it's my way or the highway because I'm the lawyer. So, some people will come in and think they could dictate to you. Okay. Maybe because they have a lot of money. Um, and when that happens, I I don't want to mess with it. They can they can leave. That's interesting. It it kind of reminds me of um what reportedly or actually she put out via letter uh Sean Holly said about Tory Lane. She basically said, "Hey, I advised him that going to court with this strategy is a losing strategy and that we should potentially consider a plea deal." Um, and obviously Tori's like, "Fuck out of here." Like, "Yo, I got the money. We're going to trial." She stepped down. if you and a client have an disagreement about whether you should either take it to trial or consider a plea deal or maybe even a a method of how it should go to trial. Like for example, I think in that situation they were exploring the option of Tori being on the stand and they ran some mock things and they're like, "Yeah, this is not going to work." And Tori was like, "No, let's do it." And now you're you're getting paid still. Yeah. But but do you ethically step down or you you say well as long as the funds keep coming in because you say that's non-negotiable. Do you try their way and be like as long as you know this is on you buddy? Yeah. Well, how do you do it? So, let's start with this. Sean's a close friend of mine, but I don't even know about this. I don't even I don't even We don't talk about stuff like that. I literally don't know anything about that case cuz I'm so busy with my own cases. Yeah. And so, literally, we just I haven't even had this conversation with her. Um, but if a client wants to go to trial, let's crank it up. I mean, why else do this? I love trying cases. That's like, you know, why did I do this in the first place? I didn't do this stand at a podium and enter a plea, you know, that's boring as you know, cranking it up. You kidding? It's like, like, you can't even describe the high of being in trial. It is the coolest thing in the world. H like when I talk to other trial lawyers, even like civil lawyers that, you know, do what I do. Um I was in Houston or with the lawyers, you know, we filed that massive lawsuit in the death of of Takeoff. Yeah. And it's the greatest civil team in the country. This this bangup, you know, Hall of Fame lawyers, by the way, how is that going update on that? Yeah, it's we're in the deposition stage. Okay. Um and you know, we we we love we love his mom and and take off. May he rest in peace. um just one of the greatest guys of all time. Speaking about that, so what on the criminal side, it feels like things kind of hit a roadblock or it seems really slow. They did charge a guy, but he's out on bond. We're hearing like, you know, I think some of this is misinformation that the charges aren't really going to go anywhere. the civil pursuit and in most civil pursuits that have a criminal um charge associated with it, you guys are constantly looking over the other side to say, "Okay, so what's going on with that? That would help us in proving some negligence and proven whatever to get whatever damages and you know, punitive damage we need." Um has that been difficult with the takeoff situation? No, we're we're not um because uh we've not named any individuals. We only named corporate entities. So we don't really care what's happening in the criminal case. Oh, so we No, no individuals have been named by our team. That's that's separate. We we just name the corporate entities um the the real estate entities. Exactly. And there's a store there. Okay. Their security or lack thereof. Um so we really have nothing to do with that. That being said, you know, I I love I love his family so much that we do keep track of what's going on just so I could, you know, kind of interpret for for the family what's going on, particularly his his wonderful mom. Um, but in terms of the civil case, there's there's no connection. Um, so I'm going to go back to your question because I want to answer it. Um, so we're all if a client wants to go to trial, we're never going to twist their their, you know, their arm and make them go to trial. But if we're going to go to trial, we're not going to put up some like make believe stuff. We're just not going to do that. Ethically, we can't do that. Um, I don't know if that happened in this case. I'm just saying. Yeah. But, you know, we're going to try the case. Um, and we believe in, you know, you mentioned focus groups. Focus groups are great if you can afford them, right? That's one of the things that you got to have money to have. Um, because focus groups are amazing, right? I mean, to get is it usually like roundabout accurate with with the results kind of yields. Focus groups are they're amazing, man. Um, you know, you think about, um, when you do a focus group, uh, like if you came to one of our focus groups, you, you know, in New York, it's the same ones where like Fritos is testing, right? Where people are doing hand sanitizer, uh, you know, behind the window, and that's how those products by these billion-dollar companies, this is how they're deciding what kind of cornship to sell. And so, they've proven their their accuracy. We use the same exact facilities and they are incredibly helpful. Um, and the the the thing is that expensive by the way, they're expensive. They're really expensive and one of the problems now like to get super technical because I know you like that is in federal cases um, one of the challenges so example when we talk about Durk I'm a little bit limited. I'm a lot limited because of protective orders which you know in federal cases you don't see those in state cases. So protective orders are signed, everybody sign, and you can't talk about 95% of the case um because you sign it away. Like you literally have to sign that you won't leave your laptop in an unattended vehicle. Um that's how important it is. And so the reason is this all because I in the Diddy case I remember they they felt people were like yapping their mouth and they they shut that down. It's a bunch of protective order that the judge signed. In Durk's case, they did too. Um is that usual for most federal criminal cases? It's usual in high-end cases. Okay, in high-end cases. Um, and so the reason is that becomes difficult because you you really can't do a focus group, right? So you're at a disadvantage. It's difficult to do a focus group if 95 to 99% of the things you want to put in front of these 12 14 people from the community, you can't even put in front of them um because it's it's blocked by by the folk by the uh by the protective order. Um but they're they're prevalent in in the big cases. Um and the other thing the other uh restraining thing in the southern district of New York because you're you're talking about um Jitty's case in the southern district of New York and I think in DC, Boston and Philadelphia, there are local rules that really tie the hands um of the parties being able to talk about the case really. So yeah. Yeah. So that's one of the issues um that has uh really come up um and uh where I am really empathetic uh to to Diddy's defense team and you know Mark and Tenny um for all these months you know this whatever nine months they've been working on this is that um you'll see that a lot of time the US attorney's office will do what's called a speaking indictment. Yeah. Right. It's just an indictment that tells the story, most of which will never go back with a jury, but the cat's out of the bag and then you can't really respond to it in those districts, right? Because you you want to just go to the you just want to go to the courthouse steps and just go crazy about a bunch of but you really can't. Your hands are tied. And of course, as you know, in the beginning, um Mark was trying his best to address it and then it became an issue with the court. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um do you ever have a conflict of interest? So, I'm going to give you two situations. Um, for example, let's say the person who is accused of murder and takeoff said, "Hey, I I need Drew. I need him to to represent me." And in that conflict of interest, um, let's remove the civil case that you're you're associated with. Imagine if it was just, hey, listen, I'm really close with the family. Um, this is someone who, you know, obviously I had a relationship with, I cared about, but now the person that's accused of murdering him wants to just hire me as a lawyer. Is does that ever play in and do you have to make an ethical choice or just a choice to say, "Hey, I can't do this." Yeah. All the time. We just don't do the cases. Yeah. There's a high-profile murder and and and you know, unfortunately in the music industry, there's so many of these things going on and and people people contact us. I mean, I get, you know, we could look I get DMs constantly. I can imagine. And uh we just can't do the cases, you know. We we just we just can't do them. Um, one last thing before we we get to the uh Durk case as much as we could talk about RICO cases. I've always said I I think u federal RICO specifically, but really any conspiracy case, even if it comes and originates in state court, they're kind of made and and fitted that it's pretty much almost just impossible to beat outright. So, you end up with usually either plea deals after it drags for so long because they're usually so loaded it takes a while. Um, or even if you don't get found guilty of all of the things alleged in there, you'll get found guilty of some of these like what they call predicate offenses or whatever. Like one or two of them, you get what I'm saying? You might be the top one, but then you still get found. It's still Rico. It feels like it's been a targeted to or or or you know, they're using against rappers more and more, right? What are your thoughts about it? What's your strategy as a as an attorney um for it? And what advice do you have to rappers who are scared of it? Yeah. Well, got like that, right? You got 45 minutes. Okay. The roller coaster is getting ready to take off. Let's go. Drop yourself on. Um let me tell you what Rico is. Um I I love baseball, okay? And there was an era in baseball where baseball was like all the games were like one- nothing, two nothing and everybody stopped going to games and then everybody started shooting up steroids and everybody was just hitting home runs out of the freaking park. My man Mark Magguire. Exactly. It made baseball easier. It made hitting a baseball easier. It just did. All of a sudden, no one can get to 61 home runs. Now 61 was Everybody was just like getting close and then bam. That's what Rico is. Rico is for the weakle prosecutor that's scared of losing because they know it makes things easier because you don't have to prove those offenses. You just have to show a pattern of behavior. And so RICO to a prosecutor is steroids to a baseball player in the 90s. It just makes their job easier. And so then you combine that with this crazy madness template in Fulton County, Georgia, right? I mean the same template act if you took YFN YSL the former president of the United States Mhm. and three other indictments I can show you right now and just laid them down next to one another. It's the same thing. You mean the current president, right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Back at that time when the indictment Yes. 45 and 47. But at the time the indictment came down, he was a former president. You're exactly right. If you took them down and you laid them down side by side, they're all the same. It's the same template and that template is what took forever to try a case and and and it just kind of it just drags on and it drones on and the reason why at least in the music industry it is such and so unfair if look at some of those overt acts like a picture I mean it would be literally a picture at a gas station okay like I have them you know of clients. So, a client goes to their old neighborhood, takes a picture, and now the n they're going back there. And the Instagram picture is an overt act to support a RICO allegation. And so, these predicate acts are what take so long and why you have these cases that take 6 months, 9 months, a year to try. The that's that's so the interesting thing. And you know, I read a well, I read a whole bunch on it, but I watch a bunch of YouTube videos. The overt acts, which I think this is such a clever way, and you're right, this definitely helps a prosecutor. So the overt acts aren't even crimes themselves. It's like, well, the reason why he went to the store is because he was getting a supply for the crime, right? Going to the store isn't a crime, but but but if if if you claim it's a conspiracy going to the store to get the items for the crime, it's an overt act. And at that point, you could kind of make up anything, right? Hey, well, if someone booked some flights for his homies to go to somewhere, right? Or if some flights are booked, you could be like, well, they booked it for the murder. No, no. These guys follow him around everywhere. They they go on vacation together. They they go to the studio together. But it's up to the interpretation. How do you fight it as a as a criminal defense attorney? Well, first of all, let let me just say this. It's not even going to the store to buy anything. It's just a picture of you being at the store. Oh, yeah. You're at the store that's in a neighborhood that you shouldn't be in because apparently a prosecutor that's sitting in their office has decided that ACT can't be in that neighborhood. And so, they make it an overt act. And what you got to do is you just got to take you got to take it on and you got to take it head on and you have to that's why you know to be in these cases in the very very beginning is so important because you have to go after all that and you have to tell whatever judge you're in front of like look we need we need to take the scalpel to these cases. Um and then what they'll do and this is what Fulton County did is they'll just list 500 witnesses. 80 to 90% of them they never even interviewed. Hey, I was watching the case and and they played one of my videos and they and the pro prosecutor said, um, yeah, according to this DJ Academics video and then the judge said, well, we're not going to use this unless you can get DJ Academics in here. And and and the prosecutor was mulling it over and I'm thinking, the hell? No one's ever contacted me about you guys using bloggers. This is crazy, right? Yeah, you're you're you're exactly right. And so we look at some of these cases and because we represent so many of these people, I'll call them up and I'll call up somebody famous and go, "You're on a witness list." like what are you talking about? And so they tried to do it to to put Luchi's name as a witness like he agreed on YSL's case. And I think you did a great job of clearing that up. You knocked it out of the park. You said, "Fuck out of here." Exactly. And and there were other people on there. I don't even want to say their names. Um but there were other people on on their case and on our case and and there was no way. No one ever contacted us. I mean, you know, I'm Drew Finland. Reach out to me. You want to call me? You want to talk to me? Nobody ever called me. I said that over and over again interviews. I haven't heard from anybody, but if you're going to call, here's your answer. He's not testifying now or ever. Um, and so, but that's what they do. And it just takes up so much so much time. And where we fortunately went second in YFN and where our judge started cuz you know we were battling this judge for three years keeping Luchi in where our judge started seeing the light during those first three weeks is in these rulings he was making he started seeing the light and I would constantly tell him even though he had a bunch of lawyers I would constantly constantly say judge look what's going on downstairs cuz you guys are in the same building right same building do we want that and and then it became really they went through three judges it it became really clear to our judge. Our judge started making these rulings and then it looked like things were going to go in a really different direction. Um and and so um you know, you just have to attack all that that crap that's in that template. It's the same template. Um but the other thing that's really unfair about it is how many lawyers can give up that much of their life to try these cases? Um and they lose all of them. All these cases fall apart. Where's one that I mean the the the case that involved the um the election in 2020 I mean that had an expiration date on that case. That case was never going to go anywhere the way it was drafted. Zero chance. It was never going to go anywhere. It was just going to die which it has basically died. The YSL case, okay, just drag on and on. By the way, the the um election interference case, especially after they start the probe into Fonnie and and the special prosecutor, I thought Fonnie was done, but then I realized the demographic down there because she got reelected again. Is is she done with is she done with these these um Rico charges against these large groups? I think she learned her lesson, right? Like you went at the president. That was embarrassing. Yeah. You went at YSL, you wasted so much of taxpayer dollars, right? And also you wasted the resource of these guys, but you're wasting taxpayer dollars. Lost that. Got no significant or substantial convictions with YFN. What's the point? You're wasting money, right? Totally. And they need to come to an end. And hopefully they have come to an end because you know it I if you go back to 2022. Um so you know my office is in in Fulton County. I live in Fulton County. I love Fulton County. One of my kids is a public defender in Fulton County. One of my attorneys was a public defender. He was my son, um, is what her office. So, in 2022, if you look at what happened when these cases were all kind of, you know, hitting 100 miles an hour, the jail population surged to three times its limit. It fit, I don't know, like, people. I think we got 3,400. I think in 2022, two dozen people died. I think eight or nine of them were from murders. And it's not the sheriff's fault. The sheriff can't move cases. But when the district attorney's office has taken their eye off the ball, when the district attorney's office is pouring resources into these multiple ridiculous RICO cases that ultimately all fall apart, they all fall apart. And then you're doing this this other case regarding the election. All your attention is focused on other things and your other cases are just not moving. And then you have tragedy and tragedy is overpopulation in a jail where irrespective of the fact that these people are charge crimes. These people that are in these in the in this jail deserve to not be bked up twice as much sleeping on floors, sleeping on mattresses on the floor. That's just That's just unfair. That's everything unamerican was taking place. So the lesson, as you said, needs to be learned. Stop all that garbage. Focus on what you have in front of you. learned from back in the old mob cases, remember pizza connection and all those big mafia cases. The Department of Justice learned in the in the late 80s and 90s, you can't do nine month or year trials. It doesn't work. If they learn their lesson, then little old Fulton County should take a look at what happened there and just go back to two and three week trials and not do the crap that they've been doing. Yeah. What what advice would you give to the rappers who are I'm going to be honest with you. I've spoke to rappers in and around the Atlanta area and they they are definitely and it's not an indication they're doing something wrong, but they don't want to get caught up in something, right? You know, a lot of these guys come from, oh, these are my crew, these are my friends. Then they start making it a record label and then it turns into something else and then now people become a little bit concerned because they're like hey you know for example in in the case with like say um not a case but the situation with Lil Baby you have the police I don't know if it was commissioner but one of the the police probably lieutenants or something they came out and they had a whole press conference they said hey this guy we're going to hold him accountable he shouldn't have had that that music video shoot in that neighborhood right and then subsequently we hear uh just rumors that there might another Rico coming. How do you avoid that? Like how do you even, you know, you say spoke to me repeat whatever you said, but um how do you give someone advice? Cuz it looks like baby's trying to stay out the way, right? Um so Dominique Jones is such a fine young man. A little baby Dominique Jones. I mean, this is a guy that I talk to regularly. This is a guy that I care deeply about. I I've known him from from the beginning. Um a little information about him, you know, as you know, he served a few years in jail. Um, I've gotten him two national speaking engagements and I mean he stole the show. I had him speak to a packed audience about prisoner re-entry uh issues. He put him on a panel uh in Atlanta. Uh Mike Eps, the comedian, was my honorary co-chair. Flew in. He was my co-chair. We did this program when I was president of NCDL. Packed. We had prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, standing room only. I mean, people were that worked at the hotel were out there that had records listening. And Dominique was like just doing this amazing presentation. Then after he did the bigger picture, right, which as you know um was really thematically u the story about post George Floyd. Um I got him a national it was virtual because it was in the height of COVID. I got him a national speaking engagement. I mean he spoke to lawyers from coast to coast from border to border. So the guy is amazing in his turnaround. So shame on anybody that throws shade at him. I mean shame on them. They need to look in the mirror what they're doing their life. Okay? Cuz I'm defensive of him to be honest because he's a good kid doing it the right way. Am I allowed to say that word? Of course. Of course, man. Yeah. Um and so that's that's first. Let's get that out of the way. But let me talk about that that that video shoot. Man, see this is the problem. When people look into this music industry, why I am protective of these young men and women that I care about. Who thinks that an international superstar like Dominique Jones, little baby, what did he show up at a shopping center with with two iPhones and a buddy and said, "Hey, let's do a video." There were all corporate entities involved. It was a corporate transactional decision to do that. So, some cop is going to sit there and get to podium and get a little publicity by ranting and raving without doing their homework. Do yourself a favor before you open your pie hole, okay? and do a little research and then what you'd find out is that this is a professional video shoot in which major corporations are involved and that's how these decisions are made. The problem in is for some reason in this musical genre people just assume the worst. They don't realize it that there are massive corporations that are involved. I mean look at the record labels that we're talking about. Look how much money people are spending to buy them. You know the people I'm talking about. I mean, people that you and I know have made hundreds of millions of dollars selling their labels. And so, my man Pete, man, it's my guy. That's it. It's 300. Really? I mean, and so you're right. You get it. Um, and uh, and so, by the way, he did call me afterwards and tell tell me when that happened that he and I were going to take up golf. So, when he's watching this, I'm still waiting. I don't play golf. He doesn't play golf, but I told him we'd be the two best dressed guy at the course. We're never going to play. We're just going to eat sandwiches. Right. Hey, the 300 million that is time for golf. It's time for golf. Like, no more basketball. No, nobody deserves nobody deserves it more than Pierre Thomas and his family and and Kevin Lee, Coach K. I mean, just two of the greatest guys. But again, there again, it just shows you that this industry is so professional and people don't want to realize it. So, they want to look at the music. They want to they want to look at the lyrics and they want to you know say that we could read through it and not recognize that for example when a song comes out and I'm not and and and act let me tell you something I'm not talking about um in some you know some performer some little gang right that that pretends that they're like record label I'm not stupid like you and I both know that takes place they got one guy that sto shows up a studio two times a year that has 812 followers. We're not talking about that, okay? We're talking about like real success, successful musicians. They have general counsel. They have transactional lawyers. They have people that are studying these lyrics and giving them the a before they come out. Okay? So, if these major corporations are saying, "Yes, this song is okay." Okay? Then why is some cop or some law enforcement officer, some prosecutor going to come in at the at the last minute and say, "Yeah, this is a signal, you know, there's some meaning to this. Listen, man. You're not even involved in this business." Okay? These people are these are major corporations being sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. They're not going to let a song go out that they think in any way is inviting and encouraging and catalyzing violence. How do you um how do you counteract that in the interim? Right? Like you know, you mentioned at least with the YFN case, it got to a point where Fonnie Willis herself actually wrote a letter on Luci's behalf that basically kind of agreed with him being released and and and that case being resolved in a manner it did. Did when when you hear that maybe a friend like a friend of yours, um Dominique is being targeted, do you try to approach Fonnie and be like, "Hey, listen." Or or is that ever a strategy? like you hear something might be happening and you approach the DA trying to figure it out or trying to at least clarify to be like, "Hey, listen. This is going to be a dumb move if you guys pull this button or press this trigger." Because here's the thing, once they do that, it's years gone off of that person's life. And you know, these guys are in the height of their career. Their career could be irreparable, irreparably damaged. So, how do you handle it? Yeah, I mean, um, we just have ways of professionally, you know, keeping a check on on these situations. Um, and that's how we, you know, we're just always going to do that for the people that we care about. There's certain people you talk to. Um, you know, it's all on the up and up. It's all highly professional. Um, and so you just got to be really careful about what's in the rumor mill and what's reality and and what's not. Um, and u, so for the record, do you is is that a true rumor or is it more of just It's a rumor. Chatter. It's it's chatter. Yeah. Yeah. It's chatter. I mean, who knows what's going on in this crazy world where this profession is being targeted right now. Um, but like you said, uh, a lot of lessons have been learned on cases consistently falling apart. Um, but it's chatter. Um, and it's chatter for for a guy, uh, that's just done so much for the community, never stops giving to the community. Um, and um, and so, uh, that's all I can all I can say is he does nothing but continuously impress me and everybody in my office and everybody in Atlanta because everybody wants to touch him. Everybody wants to be part of him. Everybody wants him in their restaurant, you know, everybody wants some some part of him right now. Um, speaking about conflict of interest and kind of honing in on the discussion we wanted to get to, you represented uh, YB. young boy. Um you came in and seemingly swiftly because I'm not going to lie, I thought it was looking bad. I'm like, he has a state case there. He's violating this case um the house arrest situation in in in Utah, but that's federal. Also, there's a gun case that's that's the main case for that. And you came in and and you you got something I've never seen before. It was like, "Hey, we're doing this global plea." And um you know I I I saw you I think you were virtual in one one of the the cases, but um you were there pretty much like you know looking sharp as ever getting a getting a really favorable look out outcome for him cuz a lot of people thought he was going to be going away for maybe the latter part of maybe 10 years or so and he's free now. Yeah. How did you get involved in that and and how like you got to give us some of the the secret sauce? I know sometimes people don't like you don't like letting people into the kitchen to see what's uh how the stuff is being done, but how do you get to that point of even getting that type of plea? Yeah. So, um so it goes back a few steps. Uh so he he had the case in Baton Rouge and um and so he had tried to get out on on bond in that case and he was uh he had had his he that case the gun case there the video shoot case had started out as a state case then he um was they changed it and the feds took it under under a 922G possession of firearm convicted felon. It was very very confusing because it involved the whole notion of a video shoot and having 24/7 uh videographers around you. And so I wasn't representing him. Um but he had his he had his bond revoked because he had gotten arrested in California. And so he tried to get out a couple times and then his team reached out to me um put me on a Zoom and said, "Hey, we'd like you to get involved." Um, I did my I did my due diligence and I knew he had the same attorneys in in Baton Rouge that he had since he was like 14 years old. And and I knew that these these folks really cared about him. Like they really cared about him like he was their own child. It was like a very paternal relationship. And so I said, "I'll help, but you can't get rid of these folks. I'm not poaching. Like these guys, they love him. And and as long as they're in, I'll do that." I didn't really have a relationship with them, but that's what our due diligence dictated. And they were like, "All fine." And so we took a different approach. Um, and we had this really long hearing down in Baton Rouge. I guess it was what, like 20, 2021. No, it was December 2020 because we were all wearing masks and stuff and it and we started on a Monday and finished the next Monday. and we did the motion to suppress and we did the bail review and at that time it was main justice going after him. Um so they main justice out of DC was combining with um the Baton Rouge US attorney's office and um what's main justice? Main justice means the actual just DOJ in Washington DC. Okay. They sent their unit down to work on it. Is that is that is that common? It happens sometimes. Sometimes it happens in maybe smaller jurisdictions. they'll send their their troops in, so to speak. And so, we took a different tactic. I took a different tactic, um, which was that, hey, they're really because the the the LA case against them seemed kind of like like a throw down simple gun case that shouldn't be a federal case. And we presented it really differently to the court. And this judge at the end of this hearing um, let him out. And she let him out under u the circumstances that it seems like that's what Diddy's people were trying to get, right? We got 24/7 security. But what I argued is let him go to Utah because he had that relationship to Utah from back from Americanore when he was 12 years old. Um someone from Americanore got to know him um that came in from Utah and became really close became like a second family to him. So he bought a home there to be close to to that family. So I said to the judge, I tell you what, judge, let's get him out of Baton Rouge. Let's let him go to Utah. He's got people there. And the judge said yes, 247 security. So we we got him out and then he went there and then we continue fighting the Baton Rouge case which was very complex because the courts are constantly battling over the possession of fire and bre convicted felon. It's still being heavily litigated. By the way, not to cut you off even though I am. So I went I went to uh he called you know he called it gravedigger mountain uh up there in uh Utah. How do you like which which house? Cuz you've been in several the um the big one. The the last one. Okay. a giant one. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's literally on a mountain. Um, so when you're kind of like trying to put together this bail package for for someone like that, there's a lot of like I've been up there. That's an expensive thing that I could easily tell. He's paying a arm and a leg to be free. He has so much like it was one of the most complex I think it was like a like this you know private militia group that was in security like they were like really I went there like five checkpoints they were pretty good and I was like he's pay he's got to be paying out the ass for this. Do do you when these things happen do you kind of pull of course he got a lot of money. Do you pull them to the side and be like hey listen I'm going to suggest this but you're going to need a lot of capital. Do you know you work with musicians? Do you pull their record label in? Because I know even with the the Dirk situation, there is a promise that Alamo will put up money, right? How does that negotiation happen? Do you facilitate it or do you let the money stuff, the client and maybe their accountants figure out how they could kind of drum up whatever that you need to present? Yeah. So, first let me tell you when I when I along with his his team, Baton Rouge, when we got him out, um it wasn't that house. Yeah. It was the house he owned at the time which was maybe 3,000 ft² if not 2500 ft². It was very modest because at that time it was just a home to be close to this wonderful family that um he treated as a second family and they are like his second family. So when he moved afterwards I didn't have anything to do with that. Um I should say I heard about that. Yeah. When I got hired on what you just talked about 10 minutes ago which was the new case in Utah. Yeah. Oh. So you didn't stay on for the whole thing? No I did but I didn't know that he was moving. you know, I did my job and then Okay. Okay. Okay. That was it. I, you know, he got out and then the the the motion to suppress issue just got tied up in the appellet courts. Him moving around was a whole separate issue. What was the deal with that? Because I remember it felt like and you know, shout out to all the Young Boy fan pages. I felt like he got good results. Then the government appealed, right? Yes, you're exactly right. So, we got most of the uh gun case thrown out by the district court judge. She wrote an amazing order, long order, threw it out, then they appealed. Um, but there was still life in the issue because of the uh appellet courts continuing to fight over and it's still going on right now. Um, the issue of the collateral consequence of gun possession, like should there be an across the board possession of firearm by convicted felon prohibition? And so there was still life in that issue, but we were also litigating the issue of the videographers and the and whose whose property the videos were, things like that because the video of the gun. So we were just mounting in litigation. Um and then so apparently he moves to the the bigger house and then I I'll get to a second then the whole Utah case happens. But before we get to that, um, I don't get too deep into the weeds. Now, when we're putting a package together, you know, I'll vet, I'll say, "No, that's not a real security company. You know, we need a real security company. We don't need friends. We need, you know, a high-end security company." Um, uh, that that house is is kind of shaky. Um, and so I'll do things like that. Um, but I leave it to others to look for the resources. I'm not going to I'm not going to do that. I'll just at the end say that looks good and that doesn't look good. So, so going to him. So, eventually he picks up the other cases in Utah while he's on bond. And so, when you get that call, are you like, "Fuck, bro." Like, what? Like, not not something else. I was just Yeah, I was blown away. Yeah. Um, but there's there's not time uh to to kind of panic. So, I assembled my team in Utah. You know, fortunately, I have people everywhere. Um, and I put together the best team in Utah. The best. I mean, these guys, Jeremy Dellescino, John Williams, these are all-star lawyers. And, you know, we we took one of our associates who's who's my son, Zack Finling, and we just kind of convened and we just kind of had a a game plan. And, uh, eventually, um, that game plan was, let's get this Louisiana case out. Let's just get everything to Utah. Um because the Utah people, we were in constant conversation with them. Um and one of the things we talked about was the gun cases. Like they were very well aware of the nuances of 922G and they had a certain take on Kantrell, Kentrell Galling, I call him Krell. They had a certain take on him and they really didn't look at him with the lens of that he was a gangbanger. They just didn't they just didn't have that perception of him. um they really looked at him as a young guy that kind of came out of the blue, made a lot of money quickly and they just didn't have that that in that horrible negative read and so we kept on and I kept on telling them also by the way was the view because I know that's two different districts is did you guys like look into whether that district maybe viewed that because there's been so many like you know appeals that surrounded that issue. Did you did you guys look to see if uh the district that Utah's in, they probably viewed it a little bit favorably? Um that could possibly if if if the case was moved, you know, he he was never going to get looked at that favorably in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Okay. I mean, he had his Well, I was just talking about just the just the charge that particular he just don't we loved we we thought we had a really fair judge in Baton Rouge. a very fair judge and and but we felt like if we can get everything in Utah, we can get we can get things done because I wanted him to have this life and I didn't want it to be 10 years. And so we went back and forth and back and forth and the whole goal was to recognize the weaknesses in their cases and the strengths of their cases and reach a part of the negotiation that would give him the opportunity to get back to his family to his children and and have a career. And honestly career was the last thing. Um um because you know he has he has these kids and he has his family and I just wanted to get him back to to his family because I look at Kentrell um as just this young guy that started so young and and so um I just wanted to kind of deliver him to everybody and that just stayed laser beam focus on getting him out and making it happen as quickly as possible. Um, and it it was it was literally like non-stop negotiation and um and we reached this resolution and then of course you probably noticed we got him another 93 days back and that's really what got him out. I mean even sooner because everybody was shocked that all of a sudden he was out um because we had a little do a little work and we got him yet another 93 days. Um and it look I'll agree with you. Um, it's got to be one of the the the greatest deals, the greatest negotiations that I've seen. I mean, we get phone calls from lawyers all over the country just going, you know, what happened? Yeah. How did that happen? He's been he's been pretty lucky. He's been pretty Well, first of all, you know, the the the other case, the one where while he was on bond for the Louisiana case, he caught the other case, which should have been state, but California picked it up as federal. He actually beat that one. He did. Which I think that's also, you know, people hear about the feds being unbeatable this and third. Anyway, um now we get to the current big boy going on. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder if you felt conflicted because after just um getting an amazing deal for Young Boy, you are called to represent someone who he might not get along with too well. And we're talking about Dirk Banks. Okay. aka Lil Durk. How did you get involved with that situation and um what was your just your first thoughts initially just even seeing what he was being alleged to have done? Yeah. So, I don't really look at anybody that likes and dislikes anybody. Like I know people, you know, I don't really spend a lot of time looking at DMs. Um but I know people are commenting going, "Yeah, you got to pick one side." I don't want to pick one side. I'm a criminal rights attorney, man. They try to have me pick because I'm cool with both guys. I was on the phone with Dirk like yesterday and and of course Young Boy called me like two days before. So, you know what I mean? Like I'm in I'm the media and I love both guys. Yeah. Um I don't I don't even literally does not even enter my mind space. Um I I'm just I'm just fighting for everybody as they come to me. Um my office is is Switzerland. I mean we we're a safe space. We're a neutral space. I mean, if you come to my office, you got to come when you're in Atlanta. I try to make it like a place that everybody enjoys coming to. Cool artwork. We support the local graffiti community. And and you know, I don't look at it like that. I don't pick anybody one side over the next. And here's the crazy thing. Not one client has ever said anything to me representing anybody else. No, man. When when all said and done, nobody wants anybody to do to to go to jail when they haven't done anything wrong. Nobody wants anybody to be in a cage when they don't need to be in a cage. Maybe they have disagreements out in the street about music, whatever it is, and and you know, and and do their thing and and whatever it is. But when it comes to being caged for cases, nobody wants to see anybody rot in a cage, eat shitty food, be in an overcrowded jail for three years waiting to go to court because a prosecutor can't pull their together. Nobody wishes that on anybody. And they know that when they come to me, I'm going to do nothing but fight for them for the best, man. I'm and and I'm just not thinking about you in front of me like I'm being very when it comes to Kentrol golden young boy man I think very much about that young kid that Americanore came and saw when he was young like I look at him and I look in his eyes and I see that like that young kid that just had fame and fortune so early and I just want to do everything I can to help get to him and get him out of there so he can live his life and the next person if it's I get the phone call on Dirk same thing never heard anything but good things about him. Do you have to compartmentalize though? Because when you get deeper into like, you know, just the allegations in the case, um they're accusing Durk of doing something to someone who is affiliated with Young Boy, right? And and that might, you know, then just put you in a little bit of a pickle because again, you're kind of just representing one guy now. You're representing this other guy who, you know, going back to the the takeoff situation, right? like, you know, you would recuse yourself from that one. But here, you know, probably just not as close and you're just doing what you do an amazing job at uh defending, you know, innocent people. But do you kind of get into that situation where you're like, "Oh, snap. This guy was kind of accused in a roundabout way of doing something to someone who could have been associated with the last guy I represented. I don't want to be in a position where they're asking me things like, "Yo, hey, so what about or they they even blame me like, well, you got that guy off. you better get me off or or you picked a side or something. Yeah. So before everybody I represented King Vaughn. Yeah, that is true. Rest in peace, Don. I don't even look at it that way, you know. Uh it never literally never even entered my mind. Did you represent him for the the Atlanta case, the shooting one? I did. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Which case went away. Um and uh some people felt like the feds were going to pick that up. The the way how they just unceremoniously just dropped it. Yeah. I not that I had word of at least when I was involved in the case. Um and u and so that that whole notion of a conflict never really you know never entered my mind. Um could you clear one I'm sorry for cutting you off. Um could you clear one thing up with that because there's so much internet chatter about that case. There's some people who feel like hey Durk basically blamed it on Vaughn since he died and that's why the case went away. Could you give us a little bit more clarity to just how that case was resolved from your perspective? Yeah. So, I can't because a lot of that has been wrapped up in our protective order, so I can't even talk about it. Yeah. Okay. Not that it's part of the case, but it is in a segment of information um that I'm prohibited from talking about. Okay. So, now you get the call from Durk. Um you This is a tough one. Yeah. I' I've seen the works of miracles. I think this might have that this might be part of the Red Sea if if you get it done. Um I I you know me I'm a notorious pocket watcher and I think this is the best time to do it. Can we get some It doesn't have to be about this dirt situation but what is the billion dollar lawyer calling if somebody says yo I've been hit with a Rico or yo they say I murder someone or hey they say I'm up for some type of sex trafficking. Um seeing that some of these guys are probably going to be willing to take it to trial. What what figure do you normally kind of throw out there that they know that's where we're at? Right. Right. Yeah, man. You know, I'm not going to answer that, but let me go ahead. I love the way I love the way I set it up right. Oh, man. It was I said it too. God, it was presented beautifully. I had $3 million, though. I heard three I heard you got $3 million for for one month's work before. Um, it was that was presented very nicely, man. Um, no comment on that one either. So, New York Times put that out. So, let me say this. Um, uh, one, uh, one of the things that's unique about our office is, as you know, most criminal defense attorneys is one or two people. I mean, we have a team of lawyers. 85% of people come in, they're using, you know, there's so many cases going on. People come in and they want to use one of the other lawyers in the Finley law firm. I mean, they don't even meet with me. Um, because these, everybody else has established a great reputation. Um, so I'm not meeting with everybody. Not everybody is using me. Um, but in terms of setting a fee, uh, we, one of the things that we do that I think is a little bit different is it takes us a while to set a fee. It's we have to really look into the case. We don't I have never charged a consultation fee, whatever they call it. Never done that one time in my life. Really? Oh, man. I got pretty much charge you for like one hour to sit and talk. What's the hourly fee at, man? I I've heard I've heard Taco Pina said he he he's taxing them at like 3,000 an hour or 2500. I'm like, whoa, hit him over the head. Why don't you I I've heard top tier lawyers, we're talking about the 1,200 range and above. So, if we were talking about the the good guys, now if you get somebody below a,000, you know, they could be good as well, but the top tier guys charging. Yeah. So um so most of us are most individuals can't do an hourly, right? Because an hourly can grow so exponentially, man. It's just like it's like an hourly is like the movie Alien. It starts with one, then it's two, then it's four, then it's eight, then it's 16, and you know, before you know it, the bills are out of control. And you when you're fighting for an individual, it's very, very difficult um to get to that point where you're like, "Hey, we're going to trial, man. Here, you know, here's my hours." So, you got to be really careful. There are certain clients that are are famous clients that are like uh like a corporation and you can, but very few and far between. I don't care how well you're doing. Um because it could start creeping into the seven figures quickly. And so, you got to really hit a number. Um when you do do hourly, yes, I mean our hourlys, mine's well over 2,000, you know. Um but it's got to be the right case. And when it's the right case, then the person that's paying that, they don't really give a that it's over $2,000 an hour. They just want you to fight for their freedom. Yeah. Um but you have to let them know like from a business standpoint like, "Hey, we're going to do it hourly." Like boom, at the end of a day, you know, it could be with associates, you just had a $27,500 day. That's why hourlys are very, very tricky. Um and so, uh but we're different because we just have we have a team of people. So there's so many cases going on and my people are like winning cases left and right and they're not charging that. So do you guys usually be like, "Hey, listen. Yo, you caught an attempted murder. This is this is 250,000. We're going to take care of it all the way throughout whether we get a plea, whether we go to trial, whether this thing gets dropped like just flat fee. Is that how you guys Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot there's a lot of there's a lot of flat fees. Um and uh a lot of times uh there won't be like a a separate fee for trial because you you know generally speaking sometimes there is or there is a fee like if a trial goes past a certain amount of time because you don't want you don't want to wind up in a in a year trial, right? And you're screwed. Um but it's not uncommon to not have a trial fee because you don't want anybody ever say, "Hey bro, you tried the case to make another $50,000." So you got to be really careful with that. Um, so for the everyday person, um, you really have to do a set fee, which is the ethical, uh, the ethical way to do it. And, um, we never have anybody complain ever. What about Okay, you're representing the rapper. His income's now cut, uh, cut off. He got bills. His mom of 15 baby mama's want money. He's kind of tapped out, but he's hitting you with the IOU. He's like, "Yo, you get me off of this junk, that my first day out song, and and that record deal, I'm going to pay you back on the back end, my brother." Yeah, that's never going to happen. Oh, no. Zero chance, man. So, none of that. You're not invested in I love them, but not that much. Plus, it's unethical. You can't have a contingency in a criminal case. Yeah. No, I Okay. Okay. No, no, I cuz that that never works. Okay. All right. All right. Now, and plus, you just don't want to be a bill collector in the middle of case. True. That's a bad situation, man. True. True. just get the money out of the way and and don't and cry and just fight for somebody, you know, because we're freedom fighters, you know, you want to take the and and I will tell you the lion share I mean, look, 95% of our clients are not famous people, right? Yeah. And but really um a lot of these super successful performers, man, um they've been through it. They've been through transactional lawyers, entertainment lawyers. They've been in litigation. They have an incredible appreciation of good legal work. And you'd be surprised. A lot of them are like, "What's the fee? Let's get take care of business and let's fight the case." And that's the end of it. What What do you see more? And again, this is probably You're probably just way too up there. You don't call yourself the billion dollar lord for nothing. Um I never call myself No, they refer to as I think New York Times and a bunch of others and sell Dolph was one. Oh, Dolph did. Yeah. Yeah. shots off in LA. You look at the look on my face on a video. I'm like, "What did he say?" And then um Pierre that night and my son were blowing up my phone that night. I was in LA. I didn't I didn't hear him say it. They're like, "What's hashtag billiondollar lawyer? Hashtag billion." I'm like, "What are you talking about? I don't even know if I had an Instagram account then." And I think they were like, "Yeah, Dolph just called you that." And everybody's hashtag billiondollar lawyer. And I said, "I didn't even hear him say it." Well, that's what I was going to say in in situations like that, right? Because obviously now like there is an element of like publicity could lead to more client and could lead to maybe you charging higher rates, right? Do you ever not not necessarily for just like a yo give me a shout out and I you could pay less, but like you see a case that might be attractive um also that association um could probably help raise your profile and you probably don't charge I wonder if you you may cut a break with those guys. No breaks. They got to come with a bag. No. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Kelvin, write that down. I need to use that, man. They got to come with that bag, man. So, that's where lawyers make the mistake. So, just because there's a deceased person, that shouldn't be your man, there's just something immoral about thinking that that's how you're going to build your business. You you build your business through creative and great lawyering, not because someone's charged with a crime. And so I saw that I when I was a public defender, I would watch there was like a big case going on. I see lawyers come and they'd be begging the judge to get appointed because it was a triple murder case. And I'd be like, that's just gross. I'm a public defender. And you could research it. Nobody nobody was winning cases more than me. I was getting national publicity when I was 26 years old. I mean, literally national publicity just banging out not guilties after not guilties. And I'm watching these lawyers. I'm like, I'm just trying to work on my art and and get people and fight these cases. And I think the way you build it is you get that big case, but you show the world who you are. And that's how you're going to get it. You're not going to get it by like cutting anybody a deal because at some point you're going to resent it, right? Because you're going to get another case. You're going to be like, "Damn, I can't believe I cut this guy a break and now this guy's paying me more." You just you just you don't you don't want to really get into that. That's that's a bad scenario to to get into. Okay. Now, I know we have protective orders, but we want to get to this dirt case as much as we can. And um how how much of I mean, you break down the allegations. Uh we've seen some stuff written in court, whether it's um these memorandums in support of, you know, trying to get him bail. We've seen a possible opening for a new bail hearing that could possibly get him out. What's the current status? And for everything we've heard about it, give us, you know, you're seeing things we won't we we don't see and obviously you probably can't say those things, but just give us as much as you know about the case currently and where it's at and how's your feeling towards it. Yeah. Um, so first of all, um, Durk is, uh, just a super nice and respectful guy. I mean, I I just can't even explain how respectful he is of me, of my office, of my time. Um, and I would say otherwise. I mean, I've met everybody in this profession and some people, you know, um, most people I've really have a great fondness for. This guy's top of the top. I mean, what a nice what a nice and respectful uh, young man he is. Um, and and so, uh, this the case is as follows. So, there was an indictment that did not name him, right? Um, it named others and then there was an unindicted person. Um and then three weeks later that indictment was the what's called the first superseding indictment and it does name him. The indictment was was identical except the unnamed person now became Dirk Banks and this is the really important part. The second indictment what's called the first superseding indictment only had one new fact. It had one new fact and that was it alleged that there was a a video by Durk that celebrated and monetized this this killing. Okay? And so that was the only fact. That was the only thing that distinguished. So if the government says, "Oh, it's no big deal. No harm, no foul." That's not true because that's the one thing they added when they threw Dirk Banks into the indictment. And as soon as we got the indictment, we noticed and we started hearing from people in the music world, people are like, "This doesn't really make sense." That that song, those lyrics were done a long time before that. I mean, we were hearing it from all different directions. We were hearing it from studio people. We were hearing it from people that wear suits to work every day, executives. And so we were like, "We got to get to work here. we got to figure this out. And so at the detention hearing, okay, we had this first detention hearing in in December of 24, um we go to the court and we say first this issue of leaving the country, it was all presented incorrectly. He had a few flights and these flights you have the the incomplete itineraries, the complete itineraries show he was going to Dubai and they didn't show that to the court. Okay. So, so, and I know we want to get to the that incomplete stuff and we'll get to that. But, so we kind of skipped out on the criminal complaint, right? So before we got to the second indictment, which is the first superseding, they arrested Durk on a criminal complaint, and they cited that they believe he was trying to flee the country, and it felt like it was an agent who just wrote up this uh um thing, got judge approve approval, got him arrested, and they felt that he was trying to book multiple flights to different places. What was the truth behind that from what you understand? So, so thank you. Thank you for context. So, the criminal complaint did not have the complete itineraries. So, we went to court and we were like, judge, this was this was what was presented. Now, here's the rest of the story. Here's the complete itinerary. And the complete itineraries weren't three different countries. Everything was going to be Dubai. They just didn't show you the last change. It was like new it was a flight Miami to Newark, Newark to I can't remember like say Rome and then they didn't present the judge with the last part. Okay, which was there to Dubai. Everything was going to Dubai with the exception that everything was like row 52 middle seat and respectfully he's Lil Durk. He's internationally famous and he just wasn't going to sit on the middle seat. Yeah, come on. Three different, you know, parts of the itinerary. And so that's when it was this um private flight. So there was no trying to throw confusion and head fakes. Um there was just this attempt to book several flights. I I do that. I mean I'll try to make arrangements and if I can and get the right flight, we'll try again. And and so that was that and that was completely corrected. Nobody even tried to say that that was wrong because we presented evidence that this was the complete itinerary. But was there um so and I imagine that the judge would probably ask this or the prosecutor would probably suggest. Did he have business in um Dubai? What was the reason for him to go to Dubai? He he has a history of going to Dubai. I mean he just has a history of going to Dubai. I mean I live in Atlanta and try getting a flight to Dubai on a Thursday. People go for three nights to Dubai. It is really big in the music industry. It is just really really big. He has a history of going to Dubai. It was nothing unusual. We had other uh proof of flights that he's taken to Dubai in the past 12 months, 13 months before then. Um so there was nothing unusual about him going to Dubai and there was nothing to indicate that he was ever going to go and never come back. I mean he wasn't going to, you know, his as I said in court that day, let's see, his dad, okay, Dante gets out in 2019 and then goes into CO. He wasn't gonna leave the dad he waited a lifetime to be with. He wasn't gonna leave his kids. He wasn't gonna leave his career. He's a little Dirk. Yeah. Okay. So Lil Durk is not going to run away and live the rest of his life in Dubai. That's just stupidity. Okay. That was never going to happen. Does Dubai have an extradition treaty with the United States? Because I guess people are wondering. Yeah. So it's there some complexity um to it. Um we believe there's ways to to to have gotten him back. Um and it's like super complex. Um but it was there was a pattern of going there. wasn't like he was going to a country that he'd never been to before. There was just a pattern of going there. Um and so the the probation officer met with him that day, looked at all the evidence, and the probation officer came back and said, "We don't think he's literally a threat to leave. We think he's really probation officer met with him, looked at the evidence and said, "We think he's not a flight risk." Okay. We do think however that you know based on the charges that the probation department said that he was a threat to the community or whatever given the charges but actually probation different than the prosecutor and ultimately that magistrate looked at the evidence and said we don't think he's a flight risk. When you look at all the evidence that's not the issue. Okay. The ultimate issue is the case the case itself. So so that takes care of the flight. Now we're into this this idea that he's involved in this superseding indictment and they put this additional fact, right? And this additional fact claims he's so brazen with what they call his bragging or braggadocious um um you know speaking about the murder that they claim he was involved with that he puts it on a song and depicts it and uses a news clip. Correct. Correct. And so so we raised that the the song we have an affidavit from one of the producers and we present it to the court. We go look you know this this was the proverbial smoking gun of the indictment. This is what distinguishes this case from the first indictment. This is the only new fact they put in. So they must think that this is a home run. But this is provably false. And if if a or Drew or Kelvin goes into a grand jury and says something like that, we got to lawyer up because we've just said something that's untrue to a grand jury. And so our point is somebody went to the grand jury and said this, which is absolutely false. I is it proven that? Again, I know it's listed in the superseded indictment, but the grand jury proceeded is supposed to be the secretive process that I I I'm pretty sure you don't even have the minutes or the the transcript for it yet. Are is are you working off an assumption that it was it was presented to the grand jury since it's listed in the indictment or are you trying to find that out still? Man, it's like we're working together here. Ready? I'm going to get to that perfect question. That's my segue. Okay, so um the prosecution stands up and and they're just kind of coming up with some ideas. They start talking about these words and they they come up with some stuff that really didn't we didn't really quite understand. And so a few weeks later after he he gets denied, I write them an email and I said, "Hey, you you made some reference to perhaps some videos or something if you'd be kind enough to send them to me." And they send them to me that day. And all this is you to the A USA to a USA. And um and all they were uh were just these fan edits. That's all they were fan edits. And and the disappointing part is I truly believe that these prosecutors or the FBI, whoever they work with, did not understand the concept of fan edits. Just like they didn't understand that you don't show up at a studio, okay, on a Sunday and put out a song on Monday that it takes half or a year, okay, they clearly didn't understand the concept of fan edits. And so then we filed the motion to dismiss dismiss that I'm sure you that I'm sure you read and that was just filed last week and that's that's going to take place on June 2nd. And in that we now added the second producer, right? Because there's two producers because baby face and he's just and and he's just doing a feature, right? And so he's just throwing his stuff into and we had to explain in the motion. We had to explain to the court here's what a feature is because nobody's done that. And I'm gonna talk about that in a second. Um, but what we say in the motion is because it's a big ask, you know, to I mean it's cool you're asking that the case be dismissed, but you and I both know that's a big ask. Okay? And so if you see the crescendo is we want it dismissed. We want it dismissed, judge, because you just can't go to a grand jury. Even if it's negligence, you can't put something that throws shade on the rest of the case. Alternatively, we need the minutes from the grand jury so we can all see what happened. So, great question, great point. And that's the end of the motion. The motion, which will argue June 2nd, is judge, we think the case would be dismissed. If anybody else said something that was false, they'd be in a lot of trouble. But if you think that's too big of an ask, at least let's see what happened. Is June 2nd the the oral argument for the motion to dismiss? Okay. The motion. Okay. Yeah. But also to try to compel the minutes as well, right? Correct. Or do you think you're going to get that before? Because that that's gonna be very if you get it before you get to walk in that court with like, "Hey, listen. It's it's it's right here. They presented it to these people to get an indictment. We we've not gotten it." Okay. They're not going to be as Yeah. We we we asked for it and we've not gotten it. It kind of looks like it's a little bit of egg on their face. Yeah. We We want Well, um if they're using fan edits, like that's crazy, right? Yeah. I mean, it it I I'm surprised um because in their most recent filing, it seems like they're possibly throwing the towel on, um the accuracy of that part of the indictment. Um and so, um but I look, here's why it's a really important issue. Um you know, you've obviously done a ton of cases, you're familiar with cases. If you were going to use seriology, toxicology, DNA, okay, accident reconstruction, anything that involves complexity in a case, the government, particularly the federal government, relies on experts. And you're right, like I've, you know, you're right. I mean, people need to understand this is a federal case. I mean, we work hard state cases. We But state state cases, you know, that's middle school basketball. We're now at the NBA and we're talking about we're at the highest level of the NBA right now. And so you'd expect that they would have sound engineers having analyzed this, right? You'd you'd expect they'd have an expert coming in from some MBA program that studies music or whatever. I mean, that's out there to study this and give them some technology expert to to have analyzed this. And apparently that didn't take place. They didn't treat this like they would DNA. They didn't treat this like they would seriology or toxicology. Somebody just listened to some music and said, "Hey, this makes sense. Let's throw it in." Can I counter that? So, what if the A USA says, "Well, we're going to do that for the trial, but because it um bail is discretionary, we don't need to do all that right now. We just just, you know, basically the lyrics of the song, he's kind of like it kind of closely matches the story." Um, do you think that might be a good enough argument to maybe deny the motion, not only to dismiss, but also the motion for him to get? Here's why. Um, good devil's advocate. But here's why I I don't I don't think that um that's accurate. And the reason is because they went to a grand jury. Okay? And so um you wouldn't go to a grand jury and say DNA proves that John Doe um was at 101 Main Street on the day of this murder. You would go to a DNA expert. Okay. um you wouldn't say um the blood splatter expert, you know, just on your opinion, you'd have a blood splatter expert. Um and so they did this and you would hope that there would be somebody that had advised them rather than just sitting around listening to music. Um, and but now falling back on some of the previous questions that you've asked, this is systemic when it comes to rap music, when it comes to hiphop, when it comes to these cases. This is no different than a cop sitting at a podium saying you're a coward for doing a video at the shopping center without going in the way before you do that and you damage somebody's reputation to find out that corporate entities were involved in that decision-making process. Right. Yeah. Um, and so for some reason when it comes to this group of people that are involved in rap music, hip-hop music, people take shortcuts and and you know there's if you look at our brief um if you look at the motion and brief that we filed, you know, we cite a lot of articles that are written, right? you know, rap on trial, some of the other articles that have been written, there just seems to be um this kind of abbreviated analysis, this conjecture um and this kind of prejuditial guesswork when it comes to people in this business. I don't know if what the origin of it is, and I'm not just talking about Dirk's case. I'm talking about all these cases. I I'm talking about the way that you go after and be a young boy doing a video in in Baton Rouge and storm these guys. I mean, the behavior of those cops was unconscionable. The way they treated these young African-American men, just grotesque. And and and so it's the way that happens. It's the statement about a shopping center. It's it's charging Luchi with a murder case cuz he's driving a car in a in a neighborhood cuz he want he shouldn't be there. he's not entitled to drive in a neighborhood and he was inviting problems. It's just what we consistently see everywhere when it comes to and it's disproportionate. It's just disproportionate to people in this in this part of the music world. Um no, you're absolutely right. I did have two questions. Don't know if you could answer them. Um because when reading through um your motion and everything you you presented, I I felt also more things might be happening. I was also thinking about the government's maybe answer what their counter answer could be. Uh number one, have have you gotten have have they submitted all the full discovery yet or or not yet? It's it's as you know in federal cases it comes in tanches and so it's it's rolling in which is just the way it is. Yeah. And the reason why I thought about that is like if if if I'm the government and you're doing a motion to dismiss based on an complete legitimate point when you argue logically, hey, you presented something to the grand jury that is non-factual, which you prejudiced my client. This is not how it works. We got dismissed. But still, usually in these detention hearings when I'm reading them, usually we will hear, "Hey, we had, you know, we did see some things about maybe not necessarily wiretaps, but intercepted calls or like text messages." Doesn't feel like there's any smoking gun where it's like, "Hey, this is the shooter who's saying Dirk paid him and here's the money." And I've been waiting I've been waiting to see if they have anything like that or is it just like this like drudge together where it's like yeah well you know apparently his team used a business card and it's his business and um well he's rapping about something that kind of loosely relates to the crime and the other guys who we think did it that's his friends. Those seem like very loose and if you look at each each of those situations just by itself it looks like like you could you could deconstruct all of those and it doesn't look like they have a case, but I don't know if they have something else that they're like, "Hey, no, we have a bunch of guys that we flipped." Are have you been I don't I don't know if you could say. Are you aware of anything else beyond these lyrics that they kind of have that they're going to present or try to either keep him in jail or they're that's definitely their strategy in how they try to prove it? I I don't know what their strategy are what their strategy is. Um I have to respect um you know I have to respect the the protective order um and um but we just say we wait patiently and as um as different tanches never thought I'd say the word trunch before but it's like part of the business now as they come in we we go through everything and um we're as anxious as you and everybody is um to go through those um and then what we do is we we keep you know uh we keep Dirk informed um and uh you you know, we're we're we're grateful that there is a system of communicating not only in person, but we're able to zoom with them as much as we want. And so, we get it. We we go through it with them and we're just as anxious as anybody, you know, as things come in. Um, but you're the the motion to dismiss and the responses that are coming, you're kind of up to date with everybody. Obviously, there's other things that that are covered by the protective order. Could you explain um to some of the folks out there who might just not understand completely what they're alleging, but what that means legally, what what has to be proven for that to be an actual conviction. For example, we hear murder for hire. What does that mean federally? It means a potential life sentence. Okay? But that's the biggest thing it means. Now just it means that you are you are um that you are responsible for orchestrating something that you know you might not have physically been part of it but you're responsible for orchestrating it. And then there's alternative aiding and abedding. Um and so it's just different ways of of saying that you're you may be on the outside but you know you are the person um that organizes organized and directed. And so that's what we have to be aware of as we as we defend the case. Uh do they need to prove like for example cuz cuz again we keep hearing murder for hire. I've never heard once how much money, right? We never heard okay this is how the transaction was was uh was happened. The only thing we heard via the indictment, hey uh there was a conversation about payment at some In-N-Out Burger spot, right? And we we don't know, okay, this guy. And then we hear other inquiries of people supposedly saying, "What's up with the money?" But we we never hear someone say, "Hey, I got the money. I got the 50,000 or the 80, whatever it could be, and I'm going to give you this. Durk sent it to me, wired it to me, or he cash out, whatever." You know, obviously wouldn't do that, but do they have to prove in a murder for hire that someone got paid? That is a very uh that's a very important part of of their case. Um, and uh, so you bring up a great point, um, because you know, you you you look at these indictments that I call speaking indictments where everything's just laid out. You're like, "Oh my god." And and so really I'm kind of limited um because the protective order to what's in that indictment to a certain degree, right? This is a speaking indictment. Um, but you're accurate. It speaks, but it leaves a lot blank. And um and I think that that a jury would have expectations um of the government being able to show that some of these elements have have taken place. They're just not going to take the government's word for it. There's the government's going to have to show there's going to have to be some evidence uh not just an opinion. Um especially because most federal judges now in these speaking indictments, they do not send the indictments out um for that same that exact reason. Um a lot of judges are the opinion. I'm not sending it out. Prove your case. Um, and then we'll just tell them the elements of the charged offenses. Um, but I'm not going to let you kind of get through the back door, what you didn't get in through the front door. Yeah, that's hopefully that happens more often. Um, so, you know, likelihood of a plea. I think a lot of people have seen like this seems like it's a it's a do or die thing. This is this is kind of like a it's going to be like a one or zero type of situation. You're either or, you're not. Uh, is Durk, from your understanding, or you as a lawyer right now as his criminal attorney, are you open to possible conversations about plea deals? Are you thinking, "No, we're going all the way." Would you entertain it, just entertain it? Uh, uh, because that's your job to listen to it and maybe present it to Durk or that's just off the table. It's a conspiracy commit murder case. It's an all or nothing case. And he did not participate in a conspiracy to commit murder. Um and and so there is no alternative. It's it's a life sentence, potential life sentence. Um so this case is is going to go to 12 people. What's the timeline on that looking like? I I've seen a lot of people when it came to the I'm even surprised that the judge uh said no to a continuation for Diddy's case and they're like May 5th, you guys are picking a jury. uh that that would mean that within a year, you know, and obviously the federal, you know, federal courts move way faster than bog down state courts. When do you think that Durk will possibly get to um a trial? We have an October trial date. Um but uh and so our eyes are on that October trial date. A lot is dictated um by how much evidence comes in. Um and the difference between our case and that case is that's a single defended case. Um I mean that's a one person case. So it's really difficult. I mean you know when you generally speaking when you have a one person defending case and you don't have a zillion different parties um your your dates stick a lot more. Um but when you have a half dozen people and you have different lawyers making different arguments saying you know this wasn't made available to me, this wasn't made available to me. um you have six different arguments. Um so we look at the October date. Um and that's our our mindset is the October date, but we're also extremely mindful of the fact that we got a half dozen lawyers, a half dozen schedules. Um and so who knows what will happen, but right now we're focused on October. Um whether that happens or not is it's not unique u because there's so many different parties that are involved. Do you expect any more superseding indictments or do you think what we have now is probably what will be taken to trial? I you know I just don't ever guess that. Um I always take the position um on superseding indictments of like you know these allegations are from several years ago now. You've had plenty of time to think it through. Why are you going to supersede? You had the opportunity to think it through. I feel like they're always they're always trying to like keep an investigation going. All right. And I think they're trying to like flip people. Hey, by the way, and and I don't I think the protective order will bar you from answering this, but I'll ask anyway. This is internet chatter. The internet has eyeballed or pointed at one guy, some guy named Jam. They claim he's the cooperant. Is he the cooperant? Yeah, I can't really comment on anything that's outside of the indictment. Are there any cooperants? I just Yeah, I just had to ask. I had to ask. I had to ask. Okay. um music-wise. So, he dropped an album. I kind of a little bit familiar with how these works when you're in a case where you're fighting for your life. Um, it's a criminal case and sometimes music or your artistic expression might be, you know, might be weaponized by the the legal system or the justice system to try to keep you in jail or try to, you know, add on maybe additional charges or be additional evidence or overacts as they call it, right? In in conspiracy cases, do you do you um have that conversation with him? Like for example, his last album came out. Do you say, "Hey, listen. Let we have a special team that we we should look at this at." Or do you talk to his record label and say, "Hey, listen. You guys have general counsel in the center. You guys should scour this music and listen, you could run by us, but anything that's maybe not above, you know, yeah, there's a there's a full circle of people that are are concerned and looking. Um, but he's, you know, he's he is an industry unto himself and he is entitled to express himself through his business and let his business continue. Um, he's, you know, he's he's got he's got a family. Um, he's got people that are are part of his musical world. They're dependent on him and it shouldn't all come to a full stop. Um, so we have we have trust in them, but there's a full circle of people that are have their eyes and ears on everything. thoughts on um prosecutors, especially in RICO cases, using lyrics, using hand signs that might be in videos, using anything that could be seen as art that they're monetizing and be like, well, you're wearing this in this video, you must be a blood or you're saying this in this video, it means you're taunting these other guys, right? When you know, I don't think we we run into those problems with other types of art. you know, people aren't getting indicted and be like, "Well, listen, you acted in this movie as this killer." Yeah. You you've you've been wanted to kill people, you know. Yeah. What's your thoughts about literary? I mean, I I think it's just it's just pathetic. Um I think it's it's pathetic that that people are trying to exercise their first amendment rights and express their their art form. Um I think these are are are brilliant uh artists and and clearly somebody out there wants to listen to it. I mean, and you know, I I read this Harvard Business Review um about the number of suburban white kids that are listening to this music. Yeah. And so, you know, it's being made for the masses, okay? It's not it's some no one's writing a song just so they could talk about what they want to do next week. They're doing it to make money. This is capitalism. Okay? And and so to sit there and get on the other side of capitalism and say we're now going to pick apart your music that's been vetted by transactional lawyers, that's been vetted by industry people and say that we think we think sitting in our offices and our ivory towers, okay, we think it has meaning to it is just pathetic because nobody else is doing that. Like I said, you know, nobody else is sitting there indicting Quinton Tarantino, man. He's got some violent crap out there, you know. And you know, I've seen the same studies you have where they could take the same lyrics and have somebody have somebody rap it and then somebody with a little banjo and the people that listen to it are going to say, "This guy that's doing it rap is violent and this guy doing it as a country song is not violent." And so there's a predisposition to how people treat it. Um, but you know, that's one thing for a fan base to have a predisposition. That's one thing for lay people to have a predisposition, but to have law enforcement, to have prosecutors that sit in their office and study music, look at Instagram, and try to associate some type of indication that that's a a crime or a piece to a puzzle that adds up to a crime is is really is really sad. And I think it just isolates and and targets this industry. What's the next um gear looks like for you? Uh clearly you have this dirt case coming up. Uh you know I I feel like I feel like in the last 2 or 3 years I've really seen the profiling stock of a lot of attorneys. Not only does it seems of utmost importance because a lot of rappers we love are catching these unfortunate cases, but we're realizing also the guys who are doing a good job of helping these these rappers or these musicians out. You're one of them. your your profile's growing. Are you are you just, hey, I'm just going to knock out these cases? It feels like you should be doing a TV show, man. It feels like you should be doing a series, man. Like, you woke like a star, my guy. Um, you you know, I I'm I'm on the go. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm on airplanes. You know, I got we have I don't know, we have cases going on in 12 14 states right now. Um, I love my team. I love the lawyers on my team. I I love how hard everybody works. Um, but I have, you know, a I have other things I'm interested in. I'm um I'm really concerned um about people in in some of the, you know, deep southern states um that aren't getting proper representation um because of of, you know, their economic status. Um I I want to make sure that I'm I'm keeping focused on my non-paying issues that I care about and I love as well. That's really important to me. So, if you look at my history, you'll see whether it's working on prisoner re-entry issues or driving with um you know, one of my great friends, Rick Jones, executive director of the Neighborhood Defender Service, used to be of Harlem, now it's everywhere. You know, he and I driving through the heart of the South interviewing people about how we can bring some gravitas to get them better, you know, public defense services. Um that's stuff that I care about. Um, and I operate from one theme, and that is, um, you know, have a being able to reflect on on a life well-lived. Um, and so it's cool. Don't get me wrong, I love the high-profile cases. They're absolutely amazing. I love the pressure. I invite the pressure. Um, but I want to make sure that I care about the other things as well, because otherwise, what's the point? Yeah. Um, two particular things I want to ask you about before you go. Uh, first of all, oh, actually, and and this might be, you might not give me an answer again, but I'm I still got to ask because I I think lawyers generally don't shoot below the belt to other lawyers, even though they feel it. Tony Busby, someone who I feel like, you know, the hip-hop community is now just like they're looking at him like a parade. We see Jay-Z go at it with him. Shannon Sharp is getting, you know, he's getting sued by him. Obviously, you're on the criminal defense side, which you're the good guy, right? Like how everybody looks at the criminal defense guy, but the the uh the offensive litigator who is who's filing lawsuits against people, people don't really like that guy. Do do you have any opinion on, you know, even some of the things that um he's being accused of like, you know, just hip-hop wise? You know, some people feel like he's they feel like he's doing what the police do. They target black men and people of some financial, you know, um, luxuries and and suing them for all that type of stuff. So, you know, unethical way, too, cuz they've suggested rule 11 for him and a few other people a couple times. Yeah. So, actually, I've been waiting for an hour and a half. You'd ask me about my rule 11 sanctions in my case for Debbie. remember um a year and a half ago I in one of the civil cases Jonathan Kirk Debbie said I'm not going to give this freaking guy a dollar. Yeah. Um and we tried the case and got a defense verdict. Um and it started out as a case against him and Universal by a plaintiff's lawyer. And was that the one where he slapped the dude? That's the case, the allegation of slapping the dude. And it's an alleged on camera. They the guy sued Universal for billions and sued John for $6 million. We we got Universal out of the case because of the issue that became part of the Rule 11 sanctions and then got a defense verdict. I mean, walked out of the walked out of the courtroom. Um, great pictures of John with his turtleneck. I never wore a turtleneck, by the way, until John started wearing turtlenecks during that trial. I like I got to start wearing them. Yeah. When he came here and interviewed, uh, he had a turtleneck. Wait, wait. explain. Okay, break this down. So, um the rule 11 sanction, are you talking about the one that was uh in caught up in the Diddy stuff? Universal got sued and but it was a different lawyer was it was actually um no. So, our case was down in Miami and the guy sued Universal the baby and um made these wild allegations. We got Universal out of the case and then um and then we um went to trial, got a defense verdict, and then we filed for rule 11 sanction. Oh, you guys did that? Yeah, we filed. Oh, I thought someone tried to hit you guys with it. I was like, "No, you kidding. We win. We win. We win." Okay. Um we just got an order last week for right at $1 million. I had to call John up. Um now John's wait 11 sanctions for suing him. So the lawyer that filed the lawsuit got to write a check got sanctioned for a million dollars $990,000. Really? They knew that by Yeah. And so so that goes to your question and and that was I mean listen this guy this guy so you you motioned for a rule motion for rule 11 sanctions. Tell me why because it was a case and and so it was some wild conspiracy theory. So what the judge said was just on the issue of this crazy conspiracy that he alleged between that took place between um between John and Universal to hold back the advancement of the community or whatever. He has some crazy theory. The judge said, "Okay, break down other than the trial and winning. I don't want your bill for that." Okay, but break down that one issue, that crazy theory. Break down the billing for that. And so he gave universal universal gets like 300 some odd thousand dollar from the lawyer and John gets 600 and I don't know $30,000. They get like 350. He gets like 600 something. So I had to call John Kirk the baby this week and who's just got such a great person. Hey man, you just got an order. Judge says that lawyer owes you over $600,000. Oh Yeah. And so it goes to what you're saying and that is and and that's why when I did all those interviews afterwards I said look you know I call him John the baby he deserves all the credit in the world because he was like I am not going to give in. This case is ridiculous. We're trying this case. So next time you have him on ask him about the trial because he was super engaged. I mean focused. He was laser focused in the depositions. He was spectacular. when he was on cross- examination, the plaintiff's lawyer, first question he asked him, he asked John a question. John turned and I think it was like 22 minutes and 40 seconds later, he was still talking to the jury. And so we just crushed him at the trial. Crushed him. We just crushed him. And then the judge, we filed for rule 11 sanctions for everything. And the judge said, "I'm going to grant it as to this one issue." And so a universal gets a few hundred. John's going to get a check. That lawyer's got to got to write the check. Is there a process they could like appeal it because that lawyer is not paying a million dollars? You think so? He's he's he's trying to appeal it, but I don't. But if they don't pay, they can't practice, right? Something got to happen, right? It's it's unique. U put it that way. Yeah. And I I say all the time that John I keep on saying John the baby, he deserves credit from everybody in the music business for telling us. I mean, that was music to our ears when he's like, "Now we ain't settling this. Let's crank it up, man. we're going to trial and that's any trial lawyer that's music to your ears particularly when you have a really smart guy like him that's really focused and and excited about it and so he deserves credit for putting his foot down and saying why should I write a check this case is is just a bunch of bull and and I think you know you asked about the rule 11 sanctions so everybody needs to look at what what John did and what we did which was enough with the foolishness going after celebrities and as far as this other lawyer concerned you know it's very tough when that happens and there's an ongoing going criminal case. Um and and I really um it's very tough because the lawyers in the criminal case, you know, their their hands are kind of tied on what they could say and they're getting they're getting bombs dropped on them, but I think it's more than coincidental that none of those cases that that lawyer filed have become part of the criminal case. It's a little bit interesting to me. Yeah. It lets me know that somebody's looked into them and said, "H, you know, one's a BS." Exactly. I I I think that they're playing the the media game, even though I can't even understand why because the guy's tied up in in a criminal case. He's not going to pay out anyway, but they're playing the media game, but Diddy's entire team has to be focused on a criminal case because that's that that's the most important thing right now, right? I mean, you know, you asked early about Takeoff's case on behalf of his estate, and behalf of his of his mom. We didn't name any individuals. That's not what you do. We don't care who was there that night. We we're going after the corporations. And that's what really high-end plaintiffs lawyers is a really big thing when you have these big-time civil lawyers. They they really go after um the corporate entities. And so you're really right. I mean, what is this guy going to do? You know, he's getting ready to try this case that carries a gazillion years in jail. Like he can really keep his eye on the ball of civil cases right now. Yeah. You know, that's one of the the main things I I I see people talk about uh with the civil cases. Um criminal case wise, right? Uh how many cases are you is your attention pulled to deal with now? Yeah. So, I try to um uh I I try to monitor what everybody else what everybody in the office is is working on. Um, uh, I have a partner, Marissa Goldberg, who's really on her own become a superstar lawyer. So, she's getting superstar cases because she's a superstar lawyer. Every time I see you go in a case, I see her also motion up here. She's superstar. Literally a superstar. Um, protege. That's your protege. What's that? That's your protege. 100%. Everybody is at the office. But she's, you know, she's, you know, remember together when she first came with me. Um, we still have the biggest across the board Rico not guilty in the history of Georgia. You know, we have a 28count not guilty. It's the biggest RICO not guilty ever. Across the board public case, public corruption case, full sweep. No one's ever done it before. And that was the beginning of her career with me. Is that the one with the public school one or No, no, no, that was um an elected uh an elected officer. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um in in one of our suburban counties and so she's been with me. We got, you know, we both got NAACP awards for that case. um and uh legislative black co caucus of Georgia um honored honored me in that case, but she's been with me through that from the beginning. And so I kind of keep track of, you know, we have cases together. She has her own cases because she's a superstar. And then these, you know, three other lawyers, um uh Alexis Lavine, Zack Finling, Zack Keller, 40% of our lawyers are named Zach. They each have their own cases. They're each doing their thing. So I monitor what they're doing. Marissa and I monitor what they're doing. Then then we keep track of ourselves. And and like I said, there's just so many slices of the pie that we can do. Um but um but you know, when you come to the office act, you walk through, you'll see more energy than you could ever imagine. I mean, they love coming to work. Literally, they love coming to work. No, I definitely got to pull up um they want to touch on a few thing a few other things. Is that your notes? Yeah, they have I had a couple notes. Nice. Um you got notes with your picture on it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we got a little note cards and stuff. Uh can I get some of those notes, somebody? Yeah, we do. Not card. We Claudia, we got it somewhere. Uh, Cardi B, you repped Cardi B, didn't you? Yeah. What was that for? The the case where she was accused of the the bottle thing. Well, we with the bottle thing, then we had the mic thing, and you know, it's all throwing things. Yeah. Um, and uh, we got the the the bottle thing here. Yeah, that case. How did that turn out? So, we they ordered 1,000 jurors and then the Thursday before trial um they reduce it down to a misdemeanor and she had to do like um like six sessions of community service. Are are you making are you like working magic there or they just like change your mind cuz they they see like yo yo, we're fighting a gladiator here. He's about to come out swinging. Let's just kind of We We were We were Man, I was u I had all my stuff at the hotel. I had like four weeks of I had all my clothes lined up. Oh, so you were bunkering in. Oh, I was bunkering in. Completely bunkering in. Um, and then it all came together and um and the the funny thing about Cardi, love Cardi, just one of my favorite people in the world. Um, she had me go do community service with her. I'm like, "Hell, I didn't enter the police. What the hell? Why am I here?" I did some I actually would go with her. I would just sit there and watch her do community service. Um, wait, why did she have you go with her? She just asked me to go one day. It was fine. I love her. She's She is Card's good people. I like her. Oh my gosh. You should She's She's talking She was at a a vet center, a veterans affairs center. And she, you know, she loves talking history. And so she's just talking to these guys about history. And she I'll never forget watching her. She was like painting or something a wall talking about the Ottoman Empire. And I'm like, "Here's Cardi B talking to this guy that like served in Vietnam or something about the Ottoman Empire, holding her own, man. The guy didn't know what she was talking about. But no, Cardi is good people. I speak to her all the time. Uh, let me see what else. You beat a shipping fraud case. I heard there was a lot of money involved there. Like $40 million or something like that. Ton ton of ton of money. Ton of money. Big DOJ case. Um, IRS. Give me the run through on that. What was that about case? Um so uh we got contacted um by this really nice man during COVID and uh he was charged in this extremely according to the um criminal investigation division of the IRS um it's this what's called duty drawback. It's the most complicated thing the IRS does. So essentially when something comes into the United States let's say a shipment of oil comes in and you pay a company pays $10 million in duty what we're hearing right now right? you know, we we pay duty on it. Um uh tariffs on it. If you make another product and then sell it, you can get 99% of your money back. Well, like anything else and invite so much money, there's an invitation of fraud. And the government alleged that this consulting company was making arrangements when stuff would come in, they were faking stuff going out so that they can get like 30% or whatever the interest of things going out. Oh, wow. They said it wasn't really like and you could you could take petroleum and make plastic bottles out of it and sell it to, you know, Korea, but they were saying that really wasn't taking place. It was a fraud scheme. And this this gentleman hired us from this company. Um, he had just been a salesman recruited by this to become part of this company. And his whole thing was, look, this may have taken place, but I didn't know anything about it. Like I legitimately felt like I was really rightfully and legally in this business. And um we hold up for a month in an Airbnb in San Francisco. Um uh Marissa and then Alexis in my office and um like an hour and a half, two hours after a month full sweep, not guilty. Um which as you know in a federal case when you have the full force of Department of Justice, when you have the IRS, when you have Homeland Security, just endless resources um going against you and and and look, these other um women and men on the other side, I mean, they fought it. They fought hard. Um, I can't take anything away from them, man. They were really hard workers. Everybody was exhausted afterwards, but we came with a full sweep, not guilty. It was a It was a big win. And in the white collar world, which is important to us, um, like anything else, man, that word spread like poison ivy just started. Everybody started calling us after that. Yeah, I see why you're getting paid that three million in a month, man. You deserve every damn penny, I think. Oh, look, I got notes. Yeah. I I Did you write any notes? No, I was going to say, "Hey, I'll tell you this. I was so excited for this interview. I I I had these notes already written. I asked you every single thing on the on the notepad. You brought up Shaq. You brought up Gucci." Yeah. Pretty much everything. But, you know, but you know, listen, I I'm so busy that I don't really have the time to pay attention to so much too much things. And I told you when I first and I want to say this, so my office was like, "Hey, hey, you need to spend some time." I I think it's so important that you are breaking down Yeah. these cases for people like you are you're servicing you're servicing the community because by educating people they need to know the way the system works. And so I'm watching you and I told you I'm telling the office I'm like listen to this. I I I go to federal court and I hear lawyers trying to make their way from state court to federal court that are really struggling to understand and and you're doing it and you're doing a great job. by listening to you talk about rule 35, but it's really important that people understand, particularly the federal system because as you and I talked about before we went on the air, there's no TV. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's a mystery and there's a mystery to the federal system and the federal system is incredibly complex. You know, you've witnessed it. It is high high level. And the fact that you're going on Pacer and you're reading these things and then explaining to them to people is is really important because we need to take the mystery out of it. Everybody needs to understand. and they don't get to see it on TV. Yeah. Um and and so it's an important service. So I appreciate that. I really do cuz um I I'm I'm a big believer in this system and and fighting these cases. So um every little bit helps. So you're a big you're a big part and I appreciate it. Thank you, man. Uh I want to say thank you on behalf of all all of hip hop. I think there's a lot of entertainers who owe you a debt of gratitude um for how you've vigorously defended them, how you've stood up for them while they were getting taken advantage by the system and also how you really got favorable outcomes from. You know, I appreciate you and you know, every every time I see the name of Drew Phillins on this, I'm like, "All right, we know how we know he's going to be he's going to work some magic. I don't know how." I'm always trying to guess what you would do, but somehow you find it. I'm like, wait, how did he That's a good one. Do you still um I mean, how many years of of law have you uh been practicing? And then how much are you still studying and still reading up on case law and all these type of things to be Yeah, I've been doing it more than three decades. And um I And so you never stop being a student of the law. Like when you're done being a student of the law, then you can't do it anymore. Yeah. I mean, you know, look at look at the fact that LeBron and Steph like the shape they're in is incredible. I mean, and it's the same with us, like the first three letters, a lawyer, a law. If you're not studying the law, get out. I mean, you have to you you cannot walk to that podium and not understand the latest cases that have come out. You cannot walk in a courtroom and not understand the federal rules of evidence. Um, you just can't do it. And so, it just it's just a never-ending game. And it's just it's no different than than those guys. Um, you got to stay on top of your game or it's time to hang it up. Man, I say all the time, when the when the surgeon trembles, that's the end of his career. And when we're scared to go to trial, when or anybody in this is scared to tee it up, crank up the 12, it's time to get in the rocking chair, man. I appreciate you so much. I'm glad this I'm glad we had a first discussion on this podcast. I've been waiting to meet you. When they told me, I was like, "Shoot, we haven't shot a podcast here in a minute." But I'm like, "Let's go." I said, "Let him pick the time. I don't care. Let's go." I appreciate it, man. This is awesome. Listen, thank you, brother. Thank you. Thank you. I um hopefully we see some more favorable outcomes. You know, I won't even get into asking you when you think Durk will be out. We believe he'll be out and, you know, we'll just be in due time. So, you know, keep doing your thing and hopefully um next time around maybe me, you and Durk, we could do one of these, right? And we we're talking about just how sloppy and how just, you know, much BS that they uh they try to throw on our guy. And um he actually came up, you know, uh out on the other side, you know. Be amazing. All right, man. Thank you. Thank you guys for tuning in to another podcast, another episode of Off the Record. Uh until next time, man. Sporty Academics, the billiondollar lawyer, Drew Finland. We're out.