Prosecutors Drop Witness Tampering Charges Against YNW Melly

Florida prosecutors dropped witness tampering charges against rapper YNW Melly on Tuesday, just one day before jury selection was scheduled to begin in the separate case. The decision clears the Broward County case against Jamell Demons, 26, who faces a retrial on double murder charges stemming from a 2018 shooting that killed two of his childhood friends.

The dismissed charges included witness tampering, directing the activities of a criminal gang, criminal solicitation to commit murder, and conspiracy to tamper with a witness in a capital case. Prosecutors had alleged that Demons, while incarcerated, collaborated with codefendant Cortlen Henry and inmate Terrence Mathis to pressure Demons' ex-girlfriend, Mariah Hamilton, not to testify in his 2023 murder trial. Court records described a communication scheme using code words and false names, such as references to celebrities, to relay messages from jail. Mathis, serving a life sentence for an unrelated murder, made over 60 calls to Henry, who was out on bond at the time, according to investigators.

Demons' attorneys, Drew Findling and Carey Haughwout, welcomed the dismissal in a statement. "As his newly retained legal team, it...