Here it was, one big case was out of the way, and now I was off to the next. Honestly though, the shit that Reggie was facing, compared to what Justin had been facing wasn’t even the same. It didn’t even require the same work for me to put in. Reggie’s case was huge, and it held so many key parts to it. They were trying to throw the book at his ass, and as his attorney, I was trying to stop that from happening.
I was in my truck now, heading to the jail. I chose to ride with the music turned down because I really wanted to focus right now. The last meeting that I had with Reggie, it went okay. The lil nigga was wise, with a lot of sense, but the part that wasn’t clicking to him was that he was going to have to sit down, and ride this shit out until he got his day in court. Him, and damn near everyone in his family weren’t understanding that. No one could understand why Reggie couldn’t get a bond, especially since he had the money to pay for it. Him, and everyone around him was treating this shit like it was some petty ass charges that he was looking at, when it was serious. I had some heavy shit that I was getting ready to put on the table for him this afternoon, and I knew that he wasn’t going to like the shit that I was going to say to him, and that’s why I was riding in silence, trying to prepare myself for it.
I pulled up to the jail about thirty minutes later. I’ve been here way more times compared to the juvenile detention center,so I really knew this place like the back of my hand. I parked my car in the lot, and I grabbed my phones, along with my briefcase. Once I had everything, I walked over to the building, and I was let through the doors by one of the security guards that was guarding it. As always, once I was let inside, I still had to show my I.D., even though I knew damn near everyone here. I was pat down, buzzed in, and one of my favorite correctional officers, which was officer Newkirk came over, so that she could escort me to the back. I’ve been knowing officer Newkirk for a while. She was a woman that was in her early 40’s. She was ghetto as hell, but I loved her ghetto ass.
“What’s up, Law? I saw the blogs. I saw you, and Soraya out about a couple of weeks ago. Ya’ll need to go ahead and get back together. Take it from a woman that’s been single for the past ten years. It ain’t shit out here. I went out on a date last weekend, and the bill came, and the nigga that I went with told me that he accidently left his card at home and asked me if I could pay for it. That’s the oldest trick in the damn book. I called that waitress over to the table, and had her separate my check from his, and I paid for my own shit, and got the fuck on,” she shared with me, and I laughed, while shaking my head.
“Damn, why you couldn’t pay for that nigga shit?” I asked, and that question had her rolling her eyes at me. I knew that question was going to get a rise out of her, and have her talking shit, which is why I asked.
“Yeah right! What kind of bitch I look like to be paying for a date? A date that he asked me on too. He’s the one that chose to take me to that fancy steakhouse restaurant. That nigga must have thought that I was stupid. He never had any intentions on paying. He thought that he was taking me out somewhere and it was going to be my treat,” she went off, and I was laughing because you could tell that she was still pissed off about that date.
Officer Newkirk had light skin, so as she was talking, telling me this shit, her cheeks were turning bright red.
“I’m fuckin with you. I didn’t expect you to foot the bill on ya’ll first date. He probably did try to play you. I’m just glad that you’re one of those women out here that knows how to peep game. He probably played that same trick on a lot of other women, and they fell for it, and treated him,” I shared, and she nodded, agreeing with me.
“I meant what I said about it not being shit out here in the dating world. You and Soraya have two handsome boys together. Ya’ll are the picture-perfect family. No marriage is easy. I know that it takes a lot of hard work. Every time I see the blogs post the two of you, all I can think to myself is how beautiful ya’ll look together. Work that shit out, Law,” she told me, as we were nearing the meeting room, where I was going to meet Reggie.
“We working on it,” I told her the truth. That confession had her smiling.
On her waist, she had a bunch of keys, and she found the one that she was looking for, opened the door, and she let me in. She assured me that Reggie would be in soon with another officer, and I let her know that that was cool. She closed the door behind herself, and before I took my seat, I sat my briefcase down on the table, and I started pulling out different folders, and taking out the contents that were inside, so that I could have everything lined up for Reggie to see, and we could start this meeting.
Right now, Reggie was being held at a federal detention center, and with that, the times that they would give us attorneys to come down here and meet with our clients were a little flexible, which was good in this case because the shit that I had to lay on him today was heavy, and we were going to need every second.
The second I took my seat, the doors were opening. I glanced over, and it was Reggie walking in with another officer. A fewmonths ago, when I visited Justin at the juvenile detention center, I remember being pissed, seeing that they had him shackled up like that. In this case though, when Reggie walked in, and I saw the way they had his wrist, waist, and ankles all chained up, I couldn’t make any kind of commotion about that because it was expected. The shit he was facing was huge, so I was surprised he didn’t walk in here, escorted by a SWAT team, and wearing a headguard for everyone’s safety.
Reggie was a little nigga though. Seeing him on TV, and social media, it made him look bigger than what he really was. I don’t even think he was 6 feet. If I had to guess his height, I would say that he was probably 5’8, or something like that. He was small, probably weighing no more than 140 pounds. With the short sleeve orange jumpsuit that he was wearing, you could see the full tattoo sleeves that he had on both arms. All kind of gang affiliated tattoos were on his neck, hands, and a couple on his face. There was an annoyed look on his face as he walked in, and pretty soon, that annoyed look was going to increase once I dropped this shit on him.
The officer that brought him in, he walked him over to the chair that was right across from me, pushed the chair back, and Reggie sat down. I thanked the officer, he nodded his head, and he walked out of the room, leaving just Reggie and I in the room alone.
“What’s up?” I asked him, picking up on his energy.
“I talked to my baby mama this morning. She had a doctor’s appointment this morning, and she two centimeters dilated already. I’m just annoyed as fuck, man. This process going so fuckin slow. I got a whole baby on the way, and from the looks of things, I may not be out this bitch to watch my daughter come into this world. This some bullshit, yo,” he snapped. There was a lot of shit that I wanted to say in response to that, but I felt like it would only make the situation worst.
I just wasn’t a fan of people that would go out, and make stupid decisions, and then get mad when it was time to face some kind of consequences. If this nigga was worried about the baby that he had on the way, and being there for her, and his baby mama, he would have taken those niggas out of his corner and would have turned his life around. I felt like now wasn’t the time for me to parent him, so I wasn’t going to do that shit.
“That’s unfortunate. I’m going to tell you like I been telling your mama, and that’s that this isn’t some simple charges that your facing. This shit is big. The shit your looking at, nigga I’m up at 3 and 4 in the morning, coming up with ways to get you out of this shit. This isn’t a simple fix. You going to have to be patient. This probably not the time for you to want to hear this shit, but youngblood, you knew you had a baby on the way when you was out here doing half the shit that you were out here doing,” I voiced, just having to say that piece. I knew I said that I wasn’t going to parent him, but now wasn’t the time for him to be trying to play that innocent role and acting oblivious to the fact that he was here and had to sit his ass down and wait to see how this was going to play out.
He didn’t say anything in response to that, and I was glad that that was the route that he chose to go.
“Let’s get started. You know them?” I asked, putting three different papers in front of him, and each held a mugshot on them with three different individuals. I knew that Reggie knew who these niggas were. I had proof that he knew, but this was me testing him, fishing for information, just to see if he was going to tell me the truth.
“Ion know them niggas personally, but I know who they are. The one on the right, they call him T- man. The one in the middle, his name Bank or some shit like that. The last one, I think his name Kampton. What these niggas gotta do with me?” he asked, playing dumb, just like I knew he would.
“You hear how you sound? You don’t know these niggas personally, but I put three pictures in front of you, and you were able to call one nigga out by his government, and the other two out by their street names. Ima tell you like I told you the last time, which is all that lying, leaving shit out, giving me half versions of the story, all of that isn’t going to be beneficial. It’s plenty of shit in the world that I could be doing right now. If you want me to be the one on your team representing you, I’m going to need you to keep it real with me. How I’m supposed to fight charges for you, when you still lying?” I asked him, and he sighed.
Reggie was s street nigga, and I fully understood that he lacked trust. He was going down right now with niggas that were like brothers to him, and the last time I came down here to meet with him, I had to tell him that niggas in his crew had thrown all that loyalty shit out of the window, and everybody was singing, pointing the finger at everyone else, looking out for their own selves, so that they wouldn’t have to sit down, and serve any time.
“Them niggas from North Miami. They call themselves NB Jack boys. They been around for a few years. It ain’t ever been any beef with them, until it was. Them niggas did their thing, and we did ours. Shit bout two years ago, I was fuckin one of them niggas baby mama. The one in the middle that I just showed you, which is Bank, it was his baby mama that I was fuckin. I guess one day, he must have gone through her phone, saw my name, and number in there and he went through our text messages and shit. He knew where I would be posted up with my peoples, so him, and his crew pulled up, and they aired that shit out. I lost a close homie to me that night. We didn’t find out right away who was responsible for that shooting. I didn’t find out until months later. Bank got into it with his baby mama, and she crossed that nigga by calling me, telling me that he wasresponsible for shooting at us, and killing my homie. I think you know what happened next. That shit happened almost two years ago though. Feds never came at us for that,” he said.
“Don’t say never. Feds always coming. They just wanted to come on their time. They been building a case on ya’ll for a couple of years now. Look at these pictures,” I said, reaching in front of me, going for more documents. I placed them in front of him. These documents held photos, reports, and a few timestamps.
“That’s your black charger across the street, right?” I asked him. The photo was a little grainy, but you could put two and two together and tell that it was Reggie’s old whip. He didn’t answer my question, but it’s cool because I didn’t expect him to.
“Your charger was parked across the street the same night of the shooting that took place with T- man, Bank, and Kampton. Same time. Peep the timestamp,” I said, pointing with my finger, showing him the top of the page that held the photo of his car, and the time that the murder happened. Even though Reggie didn’t say anything, I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was shook.
“Look at this too. I was able to get access to the cell tower data. I got it because they going to use this shit in court. Right now, with this case, we’re in discovery mode. The prosecution team turned it over in their discovery. With the cell tower logs, it picked up your phone at the scene of the murder, down to the fuckin second. The shit only looks bad because I can’t go that route, where I try and say that you were just in the area because with this evidence, it places you right at the scene of the murder,” I responded, and when I said that, Reggie just leaned back in his chair, kind of slumped his body down, and he didn’t say anything.
Crazy thing is this wasn’t even the worst of it. This was just a big part, but it wasn’t the worst.
