Judge Again Denies Bond for YNW Melly in Double-Murder Trial; Lawyers Cite ‘Cruel Treatment’

YNW Melly has been denied release on bond yet again as he awaits trial in Florida in a long-running double murder case — a decision that his lawyers say deserves “disbelief and outrage.”

In a ruling on Wednesday (May 6), Judge Martin Fein refused to revisit earlier rulings that the rapper (Jamell Demons) must stay locked up ahead of trial. Melly has already been in jail for more than seven years while awaiting a verdict in the long-delayed case .

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“This court continues to find the proof of guilt is evident and the presumption of guilt is great,” the Broward County judge wrote in the court order, obtained by Billboard .

Melly was arrested in 2019 on accusations that he and another man shot and killed his close friends Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams and Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas, Jr. in 2018. But the case has been repeatedly delayed, and the trial is currently not scheduled until January 2027.

The rapper recently hired new lawyers , Drew Findling and Carey Haughwout , who quickly moved to revisit the issue of bond . In court filings and at a closely watched hearing last month, they argued he had been subjected to “dehumanizing conditions,” including solitary confinement since 2021.

In a statement to Billboard on Thursday (May 7), Findling and Haughwout sharply criticized the judge for having “allowed those conditions to continue without even acknowledging the shocking circumstances under which he has been forced to live.”

“In the collective decades of experience shared by this defense team, we have never encountered such cruel treatment comparable to what Mr. Demons has endured,” the rapper’s lawyers say. “Mr. Demons remains an innocent man in the eyes of the law.”

A spokesperson for the Broward State Attorney’s Office declined to comment on a pending case.

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In technical terms, Melly’s lawyers were asking the judge to reevaluate the strength of the evidence. They argued the case had been weakened since Melly’s initial arrest, citing a 2025 appellate court order that suppressed evidence obtained from an overbroad search warrant.

But in Wednesday’s decision, the judge said he remained unmoved — even after he “reviewed the entire electronic court file in the present case” and considered new witness testimony at a closely-watched hearing last month.

“This court continues to find that the state’s evidence is arguably sufficient to convict and is not contradicted in a material respect such that there is a substantial question of fact as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant,” the judge wrote.

Once a fast-rising hip-hop star, Melly was charged in February 2019 with the grisly YNW double murder. Prosecutors say Demons and Cortlen “YNW Bortlen” Henry carried out the killings inside a car after a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., recording session, then staged a drive-by shooting to make it look like the pair of friends had been murdered by others.

Melly has long maintained his innocence, but the case has been endlessly delayed — first by COVID-19, then by a long-running death penalty appeal, then by a hung-jury mistrial, and most recently by another appeal over evidence. Last year, the judge postponed the trial until January 2027 — a stunning further delay in the slow-moving case.

In their statement to Billboard on Thursday, Findling and Haughwout said they had been contacted by others in the legal community who had “expressed disbelief and outrage at the conditions imposed in this case.”

“The state failed to secure a conviction once, and we remain confident it will fail again,” the lawyers said. “Unfortunately, it now appears that only a jury’s verdict compelling his release will bring an end to the years of unnecessary and unjust punishment he has already suffered.”

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/pro/ynw-melly-denied-bond-again-long-delayed-murder-case/)._