PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill pleaded to be released from jail Monday to resume his music career and support his son and 30-person entourage, but the judge who jailed him on a parole violation last month was unmoved.
She ordered the 27-year-old to take anger management classes for what prosecutors called a parole office “tantrum” over travel restrictions, and a Twitter rant aimed at a parole officer and prosecutor.
“I wanted him to be able to grow and get to the next level (of his career),” Common Pleas Judge Genese Brinkley said. “But I can’t do that with him thumbing his nose at me.”
Mill, born Robert Williams, has been on probation for about five years following a 2009 drug and gun case conviction, for which he served about a year of house arrest. He has since emerged as a gifted rapper who has been tapped to perform with Jay-Z.
But his career has been interrupted the past two years by what he considers an increasingly fraught relationship with a new parole officer.