The legal battle is over for the former tour manager accused of shooting at rapper Lil Wayne’s buses in 2015. At least in Georgia.
Jimmy Carlton Winfrey, also known as Peewee Roscoe, pleaded guilty earlier this month to two counts of violation of the street gang and terrorism and prevention act, according to Cobb County court records. As part of a plea deal, the other 25 charges against Winfrey were dropped and he was given credit for the time he’d already served behind bars.
But Winfrey, now 30, must pay $100,000 restitution to a man who was driving one of the buses, according to conditions of the plea agreement. And after being released early Monday from the Cobb jail, Winfrey was taken to Florida and booked into the Alachua County jail in Gainesville, jail records show. That’s because he has an outstanding drug charge dating back to 2014, a spokesman for the Alachua Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.
“Mr. Winfrey entered an Alford plea, which allowed him to maintain his innocence,” Winfrey’s attorney, Steve Sadow, told AJC.com. “He had already served approximately five years in jail after his case was reversed by the Georgia Supreme Court. The Alford plea allowed him to terminate the case with a time-served sentence, so it was in his best interest to do so.”
Winfrey was previously the tour manager for rapper Bryan Williams, known as Birdman, and had a Bloods gang beef with Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Carter, that also involved a record label contract dispute, according to investigators.
An argument between Winfrey and Carter started outside the Compound nightclub on Brady Avenue where Carter was performing in April 2015. And later on, Winfrey allegedly fired shots from his white Camaro, causing more than $20,000 worth of damage to the buses, according to police. He allegedly fired the shots to gain “street cred,” police said. No one was injured.
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Winfrey was later arrested and indicted on multiple charges, and in February 2018, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
“This defendant is a member of the Bloods street gang,” a district attorney told the court. “We can prove he was in the Camaro. Whether he was alone, we don’t know. At any rate, he is a party to these crimes.”
Winfrey appealed his sentence, claiming Cobb Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark pushed him into taking a plea deal he’d previously declined by threatening him with a harsh sentence if he went to trial. In June 2018, the conviction was overturned.
On Aug. 7, Winfrey accepted his second plea deal. He was released the same day from prison, but was held in the Cobb jail until being transferred to the Florida jail, records showed.
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