A Philadelphia judge says Meek Mill will stay in prison because he's a "danger to the community."
Common Pleas Judge Genece Brinkley on Friday denied a motion to allow the 30-year-old rapper to be bailed out of a Pennsylvania correctional facility.
Mill's legal team said they are disappointed and the decision continues "a travesty of justice."
"He has never missed any court dates, and poses absolutely no threat to the community making him an ideal candidate for bail, a conclusion the District Attorney did not oppose," Mill attorney Brian J. McMonagle said in a statement to NBC News. "We intend to immediately appeal this decision so Mr. Williams can be released from prison while we continue to work to overturn this wrongful and unjust sentence."
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Her decision comes after the state Superior Court last week told her to act "without further delay" on a 2-week-old request to free the rapper.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Mill in prison last week, Attorney Joe Tacopina, said they filed a request for Brinkley to recuse herself from the case because she “can’t be just and partial." In email to NBC News Monday, he called Brinkley's actions "ludicrous" and said her decision to not grant bail is "based on no facts."
Civil rights activist and MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton, who also met with Mill at the prison, said Brinkley calling the rapper a danger to the community "advances some kind of personal bias."
"It is unthinkable that a judge would not hear the prosecutor and the probation officer in this case," Sharpton said in a statement. "It is suspect to raise the ante by calling him a danger to the community when Judge Brinkley is the only person to have raised such a concern.”
Mill whose real name is Robert Rihmeek Williams, 30, was sentenced two to four years in state prison last month for violating a probation agreement stemming from a 2008 gun and drug conviction. Brinkley said he would be eligible for parole after two years. Mill's probation officer and a prosecutor had recommended he not be jailed.
