BMF Entertainment’s main rapper Bleu DaVinci was sentenced to five years and four months in federal prison, after being convicted for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
The rapper was accused and convicted of distributing multiple kilos of cocaine starting around 2003 through a multi-city drug network controlled by Black Mafia Family’s founders, Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory and his brother, Terry “Southwest T” Flenory.
DaVinci, born Barima McKnight and nine other remaining defendants in the government’s case against BMF were handed down sentences yesterday (October 29) ranging from 5 years to 16 in federal prison.
Prosecutors accused the BMF organization of running a massive, multistate cocaine empire based out of Los Angeles and Atlanta.
BMF, which was founded in the early 1990’s in Detroit, earned over $270 million dollars by distributing cocaine throughout the country.
Over 500 people were associated with BMF in numerous states, including Florida, Michigan, Georgia, California, Missouri and Tennessee.
In September of 2008, both Flenory brothers were sentenced to 30 years in prison each for overseeing the drug empire.
In addition to 40 other co-conspirators, the brothers’ 60-year-old father, Charles Flenory was even sentenced to 18 months in prison, for using drug proceeds to pay for renovations on Terry’s house.
In June of 2008, famed Hip-Hop jeweler Jacob “The Jeweler” Arabov was also sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison, for falsifying records and giving false statements to investigators and helping to launder the drug money.
Prosecutors believed DaVinci also took over BMF’s operations while the Big Meech, Southwest T and a third in command - Chad “J-Bo” Brown were awaiting their sentences.
Brown had previously refused to cooperate with authorities and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The Hummer limousine seized from the drug-dealing Black Mafia Family in Atlanta almost four years ago had been sold at auction, then sold three times more. It had been carrying teenagers to proms and brides and grooms to weddings. But as federal officials prepared for a June trial, they “debriefed” other BMF members and learned agents missed something when they searched the Hummer, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The agents tracked down the car in August, looked underneath the seats and found $875,000 in cash and seven brand new semi-automatic weapons, believed to be proceeds from Black Mafia Family cocaine transactions. The four “innocent owners,” according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney, knew nothing. Information about the money and guns found in two “traps” was discussed this week as members of the BMF charged in Atlanta were sentenced. Federal agents took control of the black 2003 Hummer H2 stretch limousine in November 2004 when they raided one of BMF’s stash houses, “Space Mountain” on Paran Place in an upper-class northwest Atlanta neighborhood.
big meech had a spotted they called "elevators" i guess there was a secret room down stairs with a vault that had sum water round it with gators that contained millions in cash
it was in sum article i read they were doing it BIG
give a big hand to the dummy on smack DVD showing off hidden stash spots in the car
i mean if them niggas wasnt just stupid as shit for being at clubs acting like loons, making billboards before they first rapper came out, them niggas was stupid for the dvd shit
and i know jeezy is tucking his tail real well right now
cuz he was on them vids too
niggas is just fuckin stupid. the godmother of cocaine told charles cosby one thing....do not floss hard. and he lived to see the outside of a jail cell with his heart still beating.
with that said i guess its like...where the fuck do you hide 673 million
well i guess dude shouldn't have put himself on blast so hard in his raps, I was a fan of dude though. Conspiracy is a bitch of a charge, to do that time just for knowing something. I guess the feds didn't have enough dirt on the guy to pin him for any real crimes. Dude is fucked
well i guess dude shouldn't have put himself on blast so hard in his raps, I was a fan of dude though. Conspiracy is a bitch of a charge, to do that time just for knowing something. I guess the feds didn't have enough dirt on the guy to pin him for any real crimes. Dude is fucked
By Martin A. Berrios As time has gone by, our music has sadly become more about portraying a role than first-rate lyricism and wordplay. Rappers continuously brag about being super gangsters but wouldn’t pop off a cap gun. We get hit with a tsunami of bars about ice but the jewels? Rented.
Then you have dudes claiming they’re drug kingpins but have no one in the street vouching for the work they have put in. Point blank, it is rare to find individuals who really live and breathe all the big talk in the recording booth. Consider Bleu Davinci an exception to this trend.
As part of the infamous Black Mafia Family (B.M.F.), Bleu would be the marquee artist on the legit B.M.F. Entertainment. But behind the music was a multi million dollar criminal organization. B.M.F. would notoriously flaunt their wealth with fleets of luxury automobiles, lavish homes, and extravagant diamond pieces. But sooner or later all good things come to end.
Within the span of the last two years, B.M.F. members, including boss Demetrius “Meech” Flenory, would be arrested on drug charges, while Bleu Davinci would be arrested on conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Much has been said about Bleu's affiliation with the Black Mafia family, whether it be scoop seeking reporters, brothers chopping it up in the barbershop or the Alphabet Boys building their case against the organization. With that in mind, and fresh off being sented to a five year bid, who better to speak on Bleu DaVinci's situation than Bleu himself?
In this AllHipHop exclusive interview we ask the questions everyone has been whispering about like his relatively light sentence, homeys turned rats and the future of B.M.F. After all, the streets is talking.
AllHipHop.com: You recently got sentenced to five years for possession and intent to distribute cocaine. Some of the other B.M.F. members got hit with way more time and the streets are trying to put the snitch jacket on you.
Bleu DaVinci: Check this out so everyone can have a clear understanding of how this works. First of all a conspiracy with intent to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine holds a minimum mandatory of ten years to life in prison. That’s what I was up against. How this works is like this, I don’t have a criminal history at all. My criminal history is at the age of seventeen. In California I’m still a minor at the age of seventeen. Only adult criminal history counts in the federal court system.
How this works it goes off a grid. It’s a grid that goes across and it goes down, like any other grid. Across is criminal history category and down is the offense level. Now across I’m a zero to one, it goes up to twelve or thirteen or some s**t. I’m reading off the government paperwork right now.
They hit me with time for more than one hundred and fifty kilograms of cocaine right. So what that does is got me at zero to one for criminal history and that starts my offense level at thirty eight which hold like two hundred and thirty months. That’s what I was actually facing in the beginning, right.
Now they got something called safety valves that enable the judge to rule under your mandatory minimum. The only way you can get a safety valve is to not have a criminal history. So I was eligible for a safety valve.
The prosecutor didn’t put me in the leadership role; they gave me a minor position. So that automatically adjusted me four levels down from thirty eight to thirty four. So when you admit to guilt inside a plea you automatically get a three point reduction for not taking them to trial and all that, so that takes me to a thirty one. And the safety valve also gives you two more points adjusted downwards so [that] put me at a twenty nine.
What they tried to do is enhance me with a possession of a firearm and that was the only thing I had to argue when I went to court. The probation department gets your whole life in a nutshell and tells the judge how much time you should get. They recommended my sentence to be eighty-four months, which is seven years.
So when I went into court I was facing seven to nine years, because the prosecution wanted me to do nine years. So when I went in there, unlike a lot of other people I had a background in entertainment. My papers show that my life has been in entertainment even from being a couple months old doing a Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo commercial. That showed the judge that I was doing other s**t besides f***ing with drugs.
The prosecution was trying to use a common sense law that you need a gun to protect drugs and they were trying to put an invisible gun on me. So me and my lawyers, we beat that. So at the end of the day they ruled in my favor and that’s how I got the sixty four months.
Bleu DaVinci "Work" Video
AllHipHop.com: With everyone on your team getting hit with football numbers, did you feel copping out was your best move?
Bleu DaVinci: Nah, it’s like this. A lot of dudes don’t know about the law. I really didn’t know how all this s**t worked beforehand. But once I got in the mix and got to understand how the law works; in the feds it works different in the states. How this works it’s like this; if two people say you did something, you going to get convicted when you get to trial, period. They can lie just to get their time cut or whatever. All they need is two people and in our case they had like I would say at least fifteen to sixteen people that I’ve seen in my paperwork that was telling on all kind of n****s, not just me. That’s what made me pull out. I had two attorneys, they let me know, “Yo there’s no winning this at trial. There’s too many people taking the stand on you.”
AllHipHop.com: When was it clear to you the feds were really watching?
Bleu DaVinci: S**t, October 2005; when they picked Meech up. It didn’t get real until it was real. It was all speculation until they started picking n****s up and charging n****s with stuff.
AllHipHop.com: Have you spoken to Meech?
Bleu DaVinci: Yeah I talked to him through a couple letters and stuff like that.
AllHipHop.com: How is he doing; is he holding his head?
Bleu Davinci: He’s good, he’s holding his head like me. He took the responsibility for his actions and took it like a man. That’s all he knows what to do.
AllHipHop.com: Ironically a lot of B.M.F. members and associates flipped and turned informants.
Bleu DaVinci: See people got to understand we had us a crew as far me and Meech and our people. His brother T [Terry "Southwest T" Flenory] had a crew. At the end of the day, they really wasn’t claiming B.M.F. at the end. Just to clear that up, T didn’t have anything to do with B.M.F. Entertainment. They had switched up and did their own thing at the end and went their own way.
The brothers kind of fell out at a certain point in time; it was basically like two crews. They were doing their thing and we were doing our thing. My crew didn’t say anything, my crew is solid. We all took the time. It was middleman n****s, n****s that weren’t a part of the crew that started telling. This n**** named William Marshall, he did ninety five percent of the telling. All kinds of s**t and that’s where the problems came from.
AllHipHop.com: That’s the dude that’s called Doc right?
Bleu DaVinci: Yeah, Doc.
AllHipHop.com: So what you’re saying is that Doc ran with T’s crew?
Bleu DaVinci: I mean like him, I really don’t know that n****’s get down. He was just a middle n***a, I can’t even say he was part of their crew. He was really doing his own thing. He had his own crew of n****s and he told all kinds of crazy s**t; a bunch of lies. Once he had them people [feds], he was just getting his time cut and cut and cut. He was saying all types of s**t.
AllHipHop.com: Can you comment on Fleming Daniels and Ralp “Ralphie” Simms. It’s been reported that they both flipped as well.
Bleu DaVinci: Nah, Fleming didn’t flip. He just took his time. We got to clear that up. As far as I’m concerned, I got boxes of paperwork and his name didn’t come up in any paperwork saying he told anything. But Ralphie, he told some s**t of whatever he was witnessing. But as far as I’m concerned right now, until I get some paperwork that shows me he said something, Fleming Daniels didn’t tell.
AllHipHop.com: One part of the story that came out of nowhere was Jacob The Jeweler’s involvement with some money laundering. What’s your commentary on that?
Bleu DaVinci: I really don’t have much to say about that. You know, as far as I’m concerned Jacob is straight. I don’t have any paperwork that said he was talking about nothing. I really wasn’t clear on that whole situation.
AllHipHop.com: During the trial an informant pointed to Young Jeezy as receiving cocaine from B.M.F.
Bleu DaVinci: As far as I’m concerned Jeezy a rapper man. You know I met Jeezy in Magic City. Some of my dudes was like, “Yo dude be spitting, we should f*** with him.” We f***ed with him and that’s where our relationship stood. I never passed him any work. I’ve never seen him on no blocks pitching no bricks or none of that. Me and Jeezy as far we go was the studio and messing with some females.
AllHipHop.com: Before Pimp C died, he made this statement about B.M.F.:
“Everybody was down and everything was cool with B.M.F. before they got busted. Everybody wanted to be down with the plan until they got busted. Then when it went sour, nobody wanted to fly the flag no more. If you was Black Mafia Family in the street when they were spending all that money in the strip clubs, you need to be Black Mafia Family right now when everyone getting indicted.”
The general consensus was that he was referring to Young Jeezy. From your vantage point, what did you see?
Bleu DaVinci: Jeezy, I’m not going to say he stopped screaming B.M.F., he still say Meech name here and there. He still make comments but you know a lot of n****s do choke up when it’s crunch time, know what I’m saying? A lot of n****s don’t want to accept the responsibilities that come with what n****s is rolling with.
And you know as well as I know those label executives don’t be trying to hear that s**t. If a n***a making money for them, they going to tell a n***a to separate himself. I just kind of look at it like that. At the end of the day, a n***a might have felt like he had to do what he had to do to stay on track to do what he was doing.
Not saying I agree with it, because I would never do that. I would have to tell those label executives to suck my d**k and do what ya’ll got to do because this is what makes me me. That’s what I would do personally. I’m not knocking Jeezy, but I wouldn’t have done it the same way. I would have screamed B.M.F. harder just like I did when n****s got picked up. Once n****s picked Meech up, I went on nationwide tour with a big bus and all the t shirts and the whole s**t.
AllHipHop.com: Where do you stand currently with Fabolous. He was running with B.M.F. as well.
Bleu DaVinci: Fab is my n***a. He’s a straight up hundred percent real stand up n***a; my n****s in the street run into him and he still f*** with us like that. He just got done shouting out Meech in one of those new records.
AllHipHop.com: While B.M.F. was still out on the town, did you ever think you guys were overdoing it with all the money, jewelry and automobiles. That did seem to bring your organization a lot of unnecessary attention.
Bleu DaVinci: Nah, there’s no such thing. We did us. I never thought that. I had thoughts that maybe one day we wouldn’t be able to do it like that for a minute and that’s what I’m going through right now. But when I get right back I’ll be going right back to flossing in a hundred percent positive legal way.
You know what it is. You going to floss with your check from AllHipHop, feel me? I’m going to floss no matter what I have. I know how to generate money. They never said Blue Davinci never ever made any money in entertainment. It never came up once in trial. A lot of people never mentioned that it was proven that we were making money from entertainment.
Let me point this out. This is my first interview since I’ve been down for a whole year. You know I had get at ya’ll first. A lot of these n****s that are talking all this s**t about me are squares and don’t know. I’ve heard all types of crazy s**t about me telling and snitching. I’m going to tell you who told, William Marshall. He was facing seventy years now he going to do a couple of months or some dumb s**t like that. Snitching gets n****s out of jail.
AllHipHop.com: Speaking of getting reduced sentences, T.I. caught some crazy gun charges last year and was facing heavy time. His sentence got reduced to a year and some community services and the whispers commenced.
Blue DaVinci: With a criminal history at that. First of all people don’t understand, the government got the control. I don’t believe T.I. told s**t because I know how these people work. T.I. sold a couple of million records. They look at it as this; they can use T.I. as an advocate to speak to these kids that’s coming up.
These kids are looking up to T.I., it would be more beneficial and would save the economy more money to have T.I. tell all these kids leave the guns alone than locking that one man up and spending thirty two thousand a year housing him. Feel me?
AllHipHop.com: I ask because T.I. just started doing some public service announcements about helping to solve crimes and some individuals, like Mysonne, feel that’s helping the police.
Bleu DaVinci: I just consider it that’s what he has to do. See, when you sign these plea deals and s**t like that, they making him do that. It’s not like he woke up one day and called the police like, “Yo I want to do a video for ya’ll.” Nah, they making that man do that s**t. It’s either that or we going to redo your plea deal.
He has to do a lot of hours of community service, he didn’t jump up and say he wanted to do that either. But to not go do fifteen years and throw his career away and take all this good music away from all the loyal fans that love him, he has to do certain s**t. I don’t look at that as T.I. f***ing up. He ain’t talking to the thugs and the gangsters, he’s talking to the kids and the civilians. I don’t want people to be getting shot, I want our people to go to school and do well and become doctors.
[Automated voice: “You have one minute remaining”]
AllHipHop.com: The time on the jack is almost done, anything else you want to hit us with?
Bleu DaVinci: I got hit with five years and four months with no criminal history and a minor role. I’m probably going to be two years to the halfway house because I got a year here already served and I got the drug program for smoking all that weed. The judge gave me the drug program that gives you a year off the offense and six months to the halfway house. So I already got two and a half years in on a sentence of five years and four months. So I’m going to be out real soon handling my business. Also shouts to all my n****s on the street, I got my n**** D from the ATL in here, a gang of ATL dudes. I got Smurf out of Baltimore. I got dudes in here from LA, Chicago, New York…
[Phone cuts off]
weird how bmf and thizz members are gettin knocked around the same time..say no more
and yeah that is crazy. you really gotta talk to the net like the 'streets'...because all these people can not only skewer yur rep but your ability to make money in the rap industry as well
bleu basically explained what hus didnt explain
and hus is still gettin called a snitch because of that by a certain rappers not mentioned/internet kids
and yeah that is crazy. you really gotta talk to the net like the 'streets'...because all these people can not only skewer yur rep but your ability to make money in the rap industry as well
bleu basically explained what hus didnt explain
and hus is still gettin called a snitch because of that by a certain rappers not mentioned/internet kids
