JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville rapper, Spinabenz is headed back to jail after pleading guilty to tampering with his court-ordered ankle monitor.
The artist, whose real name is Noah Williams, nodded and spoke little as he was sentenced to 6 months in jail with credit for 52 days previously served.
Williams pleaded guilty in the case last week. According to his arrest report, Williams removed his ankle monitor and left his residence for less than an hour before being arrested last August. He’d been ordered to wear the GPS device while out on bond for a 2021 charge of firearm possession by a convicted felon and gang member. That charge was later reduced to mere possession, and he was acquitted by a jury last October.
In sentencing him Friday, Circuit Judge Jeb Branham said he was “wrestling” with whether the low-level felony warranted additional jail time. But he ultimately decided to send Williams back behind bars.
“It’s not a high-level offense,” Branham explained, “but it is your third felony offense.”
Williams was previously convicted of witness tampering and carrying a concealed firearm in separate cases in 2017. He was designated a certified affiliate of a violent Jacksonville street gang by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. His career is in part predicated on his gang ties. Like many of his songs, the viral hit "Who I Smoke" mocks victims of gang-related murders.