Florida-based artist Y&R Mookey received a 10-year sentence this week after previously being convicted on a possession of a firearm charge. Both the sentence and the trial that preceded it have received nationwide attention, due in large part to the fact that music videos were utilized during the court proceedings.
Per a regional report from Jacksonville’s First Coast News, Mookey—a 23-year-old artist whose real name is Tyler Jackson—was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in the Florida Department of Corrections. Additionally, as Florida 4th Circuit Court Judge Meredith Charbula detailed during in-court comments, he was sentenced to five years of probation.
“Mr. Jackson, I watched the music videos and I have to say that I’m appalled at the content of them, at the direction,” Charbula said at the sentencing hearing. In an apparent passing reference to the defense that such works are examples of creative expression and should not be used in this capacity, the judge added, “It may have been some art but that wasn’t what it was for.”
Jackson, who was given credit for 739 previously served days, also spoke during Tuesday’s hearing.
“I want to stress that, I am not the person that the state is trying to make me out to be, by any means,” he told the court. “I am not a violent person. I don’t have any violent charges or a violent criminal background. I’m not no gang member, nor have I ever been a gang member or been guilty by association to any gang. I have no criminal history as an adult and I do my best not to have any encounters with the law enforcement.”
