Boosie Badazz pleads guilty to federal felon-in-possession charge

Rapper Torence Ivy Hatch Jr., known professionally as Boosie Badazz, pleaded guilty Tuesday in a federal courtroom in San Diego to a single count of being a felon in possession of a firearm stemming from a May 2023 traffic stop. Federal prosecutors said two handguns were found in the vehicle he was riding in after officers tracked the car following social media footage that appeared to show Hatch with a gun. Under the terms disclosed by prosecutors, they will drop a second gun charge and recommend a two year prison sentence and three years of supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for November 2025 before U.S. District Judge Cathy Bencivengo.

The plea resolves a case that has wound through state and federal courts for more than two years. Local authorities arrested Hatch in the Chollas View neighborhood of San Diego after investigators, citing social media surveillance, said they saw him with a handgun in his waistband and used a helicopter to locate the vehicle. Prosecutors later said the two pistols, identified in filings as a Glock and a Springfield Armory Hellcat, were purchased in Georgia and flown to San Diego on the same day of the arrest. That interstate movement...