Kodak Black Claps Back at ‘Desperate’ Florida Arrest

KTV, Kodak, always cut no business, cut no bill, care what you're in, man. Rapper Kodak Black thrown behind bars again, this time for allegedly trafficking MDMA. But it's his occupation that's taking center stage in the courtroom. The state will actually ask that you increase the bond as the defendant is a professional rapper. But that request is literally laughable to the defense. But the fact that he's a rapper doesn't give you a legal purpose to raise the bond. That attorney is Bradford Cohen, who we're sitting down with on today's episode. This is Scandal, presented by Law & Crime. I'm Sierra Gillespie. Kodak Black is no stranger to run-ins with the law. He's seen a slew of arrests in the past, but this time around, his defense attorney says, there's not even close to enough evidence to bring charges. The prosecution, however, disagrees, as the charges have already been brought. But will they stick? That's just one of the questions we're asking today. We've got the privilege of sitting down with Kodak Black's defense attorney himself, Bradford Cohen. And I'm going to ask him all the burning questions. Today's Scandal takes us to Orange County, Florida, where for a time this week, 28-year-old Bill Capri was sitting in a jail cell. If you're unfamiliar with the name Bill Capri, maybe you know him by his stage name. Ever heard of Kodak Black? The famed rapper boasting more than 30 million monthly listeners on Spotify? The musician behind such hits as Super Gremlin and Tunnel Vision? Needless to say, he's mega famous, or by some standards, infamous. At the very least, he's had 12 previous convictions and new charges filed against him just this month. Yo, Kodak Black, they just went global. I'm on air one, air by the all my fans, all my day one. Let's celebrate. Kodak Black, they went there no matter where you at, you know what I'm saying? His arrests and convictions date back more than a decade to his teenage years. Between 2015 and 2017, he was charged with things like robbery, battery, false imprisonment of a child, possession of a firearm by a delinquent, grand theft auto, and child neglect. While he was still a teen at about 17 years old, Kodak was first represented by today's guest, Bradford Cohen. Brad has repped him in a multitude of cases, including his 2019 weapons charge. And this was huge. Because Kodak was sentenced to 46 months, or four years, in prison. And he even ended up serving 10 months. But on President Donald Trump's final day in office of 2021, he commuted the sentence. Years ago, Bradford had actually been a contestant on that TV show, The Apprentice, and leveraged that relationship with President Trump to have Kodak released. He was released from prison in 2021, but was arrested again multiple times, including less than a year later in 2022. Now, this happened. In Broward County, Florida, where he was charged with trafficking oxycodone and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription during a traffic stop. The next year, in 2023, came maybe his most infamous arrest, when Kodak was found asleep behind the wheel, reportedly with white powder around his mouth. And at first, he was charged for possession of cocaine. But that was later dropped when tests determined that the drug was actually oxycodone, for which he had a prescription. That same year, he faced another arrest, for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of marijuana when trying to enter the United States border from Canada. In all, he's been convicted 12 times. And those other convictions are just the precursor for what we're talking about here today. And all this takes us back to November 2025. And that's when a 911 call came in for reports of gunshots being fired outside the Children's Safety Village in Orlando, Florida. So when police got to the scene, they say they found two vehicles. And inside of one, they claimed to have smelled marijuana. So that gave. And that gave them probable cause to search the vehicle. And they later found a $100 bill with a white substance on it. First responders also went on to allegedly find a pink bag containing a plastic baggie of what appeared to be MDMA and $37,000 worth of cash. Prosecutors would later point out that this pink bag was featured in at least one photo posted to Kodak's social media. The bag was seen with other paraphernalia like scissors and a lighter. And by the way, Bradford Cohn's going to go into this more in depth in the interview. But. This happens last fall. And just last month on April 17th, investigators say the test for the white substance came back showing it was positive for MDMA. And there was enough of the substance there to be considered a trafficking amount. So that's the charge that Kodak faces. And enter Bradford Cohn. As he pointed out at a hearing this week, the original report stated that investigators found 27 grams of cocaine. Interestingly, though, the April 17th test shows it was actually MDMA. On top of that, as Bradford points out, 27 grams were recovered, which is under the trafficking amount of 28 grams for cocaine. But when it was determined to be MDMA, the threshold is lower. That requirement for trafficking is only 20 grams. So again, that's the charge Kodak now faces. The hearing itself that happened just yesterday was to establish bond. But Brad laid out a couple of things, noting that there were no prints found to match Kodak at all. And he actually argued that he was working on a motion to dismiss on the ride over to the hearing. He made. Note that Kodak was in California when all of this news broke and willingly flew back to Florida to appear in court on Thursday. And the hearing itself was less than 10 minutes. I already gave you most of the highlights, but this is the part that really stood out to me. The prosecution asked for a higher bond amount of $75,000 because of the defendant's career choice. They actually asked that you increase the bond as the defendant is a professional rapper. You can see defense counsel literally laughing, shaking his head at this. And I'm going to ask him about this during the interview, of course. But this is his reply. The judge agreed with this in part, according to local TV station WKMG. She went on to say, quote, I'm going to increase the bond, not for the fact that you're a rapper. I think that has no binding. But the other factors that the court considered is your prior criminal history, including 12 prior felony convictions. So bond was. It was ultimately set at $75,000 and Kodak posted it and was released from the Orange County Jail just last night. All right. And now is the moment we've all been waiting for. I keep building it up. So let's finally bring on today's guest. It's a friend of the show who just happens to be Kodak Black's defense attorney himself, Bradford Cohen. Thanks for coming on Scandal with us today. And let me start by asking, how's your client feeling right now? He's feeling better now that he's out. Everyone always feels better when they're out. So, yes, he's. He's feeling fine. We went over the discovery together, the police report, and he knows what's going on with the case. And I think I made it pretty clear what I think of the case yesterday with the judge. And we'll get into that. But I don't think that there's much to this one. But we'll discuss. Okay, yeah. Let's go through it. So when I was doing the research for this case, I was like, okay, wait. He just got arrested, but this stems from something that happened back in November. Can you kind of break that down for me? Sure. So back in November. An officer approached two vehicles, and there were a bunch of people around. He didn't see Kodak originally when he approached the vehicles. He ends up searching those two vehicles, which obviously we'll kind of get into how he searched those vehicles and why he searched those vehicles and why I think that could also be another thing that is a problem. And he ends up in one of the vehicles, he ends up finding a bag. He actually finds two bags. There's one person in that vehicle, not Kodak. And he finds two bags, and there's. There's items in each bag, and there's also drugs and money in each bag. And doesn't arrest anyone other than the individual that was in the car at the time. And I think another individual that was in the other car at the time. Does not arrest Kodak. But sends off all the items in the bag to get fingerprinted, praying that a fingerprint will come back to Kodak. Because the case is not even a case. Even if the fingerprint is not a case. Even if the fingerprint came back, it's still not a case, but that's okay. No fingerprints came back to Kodak, and they waited six months, and then I guess they decided to file on the case because they had nothing else. Okay, it was interesting to me because something you pointed out yesterday in court, his charges are for trafficking MDMA. But originally on the report, did it say cocaine? What's really interesting is when. So, the report from that night has a lot of things that are either different, or missing in the affidavit that he gave to a judge to sign, which is another issue that I'll have. But the night of the event, he allegedly says in his training and experience, he knows that this is cocaine, and he's seen it before, and somehow he spotted cocaine on a $100 bill, and he knew it was cocaine. And then when he took the bag and tested it, it tested as cocaine. But then somehow between there and the lab, it magically turned into MDMA. And then now you have 27 grams of MDMA, which have nothing to do with cocaine, by the way. They're completely separate. You can't test MDMA, and it comes up as cocaine in even a field test. And of course, he left that out of the affidavit that the original field test was incorrect, allegedly. But if it was 27 grams of cocaine, it wouldn't be a trafficking charge, and that's not sexy. So, it gets sent to the lab, and now it's a trafficking charge. Because it's over 20 grams of MDMA, which then makes it a trafficking charge. charge. So that is another thing that's weird. And then in the affidavit that he gives to the judge to sign, he says he also smells marijuana in that car, yet he never says that in his police report on the night of the incident. So there's a lot going on here that is classic, I'm going to arrest Kodak and not do really a good investigation or adhere to the law. Okay, because I've seen this a lot where, and other cases too, I'm sure you've covered cases where it's like, okay, well, we smell marijuana in this vehicle, probable cause, you know, we smell it, we're going to search or whatever. But is that something that you're going to, I guess, protest to based on what he was saying in the report that he only later told the judge about? I mean, explain that to me. Yeah, so we could object to it. It's just, you know, listen, when you file an affidavit with the court, you should put in all the relevant facts and circumstances of the case. If it tested positive for you, it's not going to be a big deal. So I would lean towards he made a mistake, which clearly either he made a mistake or he's just not telling the truth. I would lean towards he made a mistake, hopefully. And you exclude it from an affidavit that you give to a judge later. It raises suspicions automatically. And as I said once to the famous Mark Furman, if you lie about one thing, you lie about everything. You said that to Mark Furman? Yeah, I got thrown off of, I got thrown off of Geraldo Rivera for saying that. Yeah. But, you know, that's another story for another day. But long story short is, you know, the famous saying is, if you lie about one thing, you lie about everything. If you catch someone in one lie, what is to say that they're not going to lie about something else? So that I always tell, and I've represented officers before, and I always tell them, put everything in your affidavit for a warrant so the judge can get a full picture. No criminal defense attorney like me, which there is no criminal defense attorney like me, but some criminal defense attorney like me, I'm not going to lie about anything. I'm not going to lie about anything. out there would say, hey, why didn't you put this in your report? Why would you exclude the evening that it occurred? You tested it and it came out as cocaine. And now suddenly it's MDMA. So there's a lot of things to raise question about that. The bigger problem that they have is that according to Florida case law, according to the elements of constructive possession, and what I mean by constructive possession is there's two ways to possess someone. There's actual possession, which is, oh, I have weed in my pocket. And then there's constructive possession, where I'm sitting at a desk and on my desk, there's a baggie and in the baggie, there's weed. I don't actually have physical, you know, I don't have it in my physical possession, but it's sitting close enough where they can say, okay, you knew what it was. You have dominion and control over it. All these other elements that come into constructive possession. So in this case, where Kodak's not even on the scene, until he approaches the officer and says, hey, that money in that bag belongs to my corporation. That's the statement that he's attributing to him. He's not even on the scene until then. How do you attribute drugs found in a car with someone else in it? You're saying that it's Kodak's. So there's a real problem there. And it's, it's a legal issue. It is a element issue that they're missing the elements of the actual crime. But this often happens when you see Kodak get charged. And that is what's been happening over and over again, where they're so desperate to get, you know, Kodak on something that they file these cases. I mean, it's good for me because it makes me look great when I keep winning them, but it's not good for the client where he keeps getting charged with these cases that don't meet the legal requirements. I mean, you're doing the job of the defense attorney that we would all want, right? Going through and looking at, okay, here's what it said in the report. Does this match up with Florida case or whatever it may be? Like you're going through and, you know, poking holes in everything. And something you mentioned in the hearing yesterday that I want to ask you about, and you just said there is that they keep going after him. They keep trying to get him arrested. And as I was going through, I was looking and he does have a lengthy rap sheet, let's say, you know, I think a dozen or so convictions, but I mean, do you believe that, you know, people are out to get him to have him arrested and convicted? Yeah, I think in Florida, in certain areas of Florida, yes, I think they are out to get him and get convicted. I mean, I have individuals that I'm friendly with that work at certain agencies and certain certain policing agencies that will tell me I, you know, they have meetings, you know, like, hey, you know, I heard you stopped Kodak. Like, did you find anything? Or if they bring someone in that is in his neighborhood that they arrest for something else, their first question is, what do you know about Kodak? So there has been a long on ongoing kind of thing with with Kodak that, you know, certain areas of Florida are definitely gunning to attempt to get him for something. And why do you think that is? I mean, have you guys talked about this together? Like, what are his thoughts on this? I think that number one is that, you know, we are successful in beating a lot of cases. I think that, you know, the commutation that he got on the federal case didn't sit well with the FBI agent who was desperate to make a name for himself with the arrest. There are certain things that I think have happened in terms of, you know, he gets arrested for something, they try to get him for it, and then they end up not getting him for it. I think that even though a lot of police officers that I represent, very good ones, are saying like, hey, I don't take anything personally. And I really don't think some of them don't take it personally. I think others do take it personally. And also the show of wealth, you know, they just there's some people that, you know, really don't like young black artists driving around in Rolls Royces. That's just the fact. And people don't want to say that out loud. I'll say it out loud because I don't care. And I've represented enough individuals in that certain area of entertainment that I know this for a fact, like, you know, they just don't like it. And whether or not, you know, it is a drug issue or something else, they just don't like it. And I think that's you know, it gets under their skin. And that's what I think happens with Kodak, to be quite honest with you. I think that, you know, he sang about it. They wanted to give me eight and he ended up getting probation. You know, like if you sing about it and things like that, they don't like it. So I understand it. I get it. But, you know, if you want to get somebody, then do it the right way. Don't do it. You know, don't file on things that are not legally sufficient. Something you just mentioned there and I heard in your court appearance yesterday, you know, I mean, and this is what you said that, you know, maybe they're after these successful rappers. We've seen a lot of the cases I cover are rappers who've been arrested or they're being tried or whatever. And yesterday, I've never heard this before, but the prosecutor said that they wanted to raise the bond based on him being a rapper. I mean, I saw your reaction. We're going to play it in this video. You literally are like, hmm, what? And then just start laughing. I mean, can you, what was going through your mind when you heard that in court? It's just legally insufficient. It's just, it proves my point. It proves that they finally said it out loud. I want to raise his bond because he's of his employment because he's a rapper. That was the reason I want to raise his bond because he's a rapper. So, you know, finally someone said it out loud, which I thought was entertaining. Um, but it's not legally sufficient to raise a bond because of someone's employment. But I, I mean, think about this for a minute. Do we see country artists being arrested every week for drugs? Do we just think that there's no country artists that does any drugs and doesn't do anything illegal? Do we think there's no rock and roll guy that doesn't do anything illegal and do drugs? Do we think, you know, any of these other genres artists, uh, um, you know, uh, famous people in Hollywood, do we think that these individuals don't do drugs and don't have anything illegal on them at any time? Why is it only that you see this, you know, that you only see rappers getting arrested, getting stopped, getting searched? Because there is some sort of common thread there that nobody wants to discuss. Nobody wants to talk about. Everyone denies it. Everybody says, no, no, no, that's not the reason, but it is the reason. And I, and also if you think about it, that rap genre, that whole kind of entertainment field, whenever they get out of trouble, then they rap about it. And it's as opposed to like, you know, someone, you know, Taylor Swift is not, even if Taylor Swift got arrested, I don't think she'd be talking about it in the next song. She likes to talk about her breakups. So like, you know, this is, this is all, you know, it's all entertainment, you know, because they're making their own music. But I think people take it very personally when they say like, oh, that cop stopped me, but he didn't get anything on me or something like that. And it's in a rap. It's in a rap that doesn't wind up well for the individual talking about it. So these are the things we deal with in this line of work. Yeah. Taunting in a way, maybe they see it that way, but actually it's so interesting that you bring up Taylor Swift because I'm a big Taylor Swift fan. And as I was going through and you said that, I was thinking of one of her lyrics. She says, you tried to buy some pills from a friend of mine in one of her songs. And I'm like, okay, buying pills, illegal. Do we see them storming Taylor Swift's door? You know, it's not. - Not quite the same. So I guess maybe there's a different playing field here. I think so. And I think a lot of cops are Swifties. So that also, that also comes into play. You know, I think a lot of cops like that Taylor Swift. Now, listen, I just think that, you know, it's always been like that. You know, I've been in this industry since the 90s. Even before I was in this industry, I was in kind of, you know, the industry, not the legal industry, but I was in the music industry in terms of knowing people that are rappers and things of that nature. And it has always been like this. It's not like something that just came up. It's always been where, you know, rich, young, black individuals, they often get harassed more. And that is just a fact. I don't know how else to put it. And it's like, I know people don't want to hear that. And they want to say like, oh yeah, but you know, they're, these guys are gangsters or these guys are troublemakers or whatever it is. It's just, that is the nature of the beast. And, you know, guys rolling around in Rolls Royces get pulled over more than, you know, a 50 year old riding around in a Rolls Royce. Yeah. Yeah. And okay. So I'm going to wrap up with this because you mentioned this yesterday in court, you actually said something like on the train ride over here, I was writing up emotions. Like we're going to get this thrown out. And that's why I wanted to talk to you today. We've kind of talked through the prosecutors obviously say that they've got enough evidence to bring the charges. They're, you know, going full steam ahead, whatever it may be. But with you, what are your thoughts? I mean, you're going to file a motion to dismiss. You think that you'll get it dismissed? So at this point, the prosecutors really aren't saying we're going to go full steam ahead. I think they're getting all the information now. What happens is how this all unfolds is the officer writes his affidavit for a warrant, submits it to a judge. The judge usually reviews that. Uh, affidavit and then rules on probable cause and says, oh, there's enough probable cause here to issue a warrant. My opinion was, I don't think there was enough probable cause to issue a warrant in, in accordance with all of the case law in the state of Florida on constructive possession, but that's spilt milk at this point. Right? So a probable cause affidavit is, is written. The, the judge signs off on it. Warrant goes out, he gets arrested. Now it's up to the state attorney to say, do we have enough here in terms of justice? Right. So that's the elements, not even like, is this a question for the jury? We're not even at the point where sometimes there's enough, but, uh, a, a prosecutor may say, there's no way we're going to get a conviction on this. Even if there's enough probable cause, there's no way we're going to get a conviction. So we're going to drop it. We're not even at that point. I don't even think if you look at the actual accusations here, if there's elements that are met for constructive possession in accordance to the case law, it is insufficient. So we'll be talking to the state attorney. We'll give her, we'll give her or him the case law that's involved. We'll discuss it and we'll see if they read the case law and they apply it to what's there. This case shouldn't go very far. Now there's other reasons why cases go far political reasons or, you know, it's Kodak. That's generally one of the reasons cases go. And, you know, when we look at the body of cases for Kodak, like, you know, even the last charge that he had, the federal charge that he had, it was for filling out a form incorrectly to obtain a firearm. It wasn't obtaining a firearm illegally. So like all the headlines are like firearm offense. It's not a firearm offense. He was charged the same thing that Hunter Biden got charged with. So like, and he wasn't offered, he wasn't offered a diversion program like Hunter Biden. He wasn't offered, uh, different things that he could do with that case. He was offered four years in prison. So like, actually he was offered nine years in prison and I ended up getting him, I think three or four. So when we look at like how these cases are treated, first of all, that case is never even brought that you fill out a form incorrectly. If you're a non-felon, which he was at the time, a non-convicted felon, but then to be offered a prison sentence on a paperwork offense and given no bond, he was not even, he was not even given a bond on a paperwork offense as, and then you juxtapose it to Hunter Biden, who not only was he given a bond, but he was also offered a diversion program on a gun charge. Just never happens. So when we start looking at these things, you, you really start to think, wait a minute, Brad can't be crazy. Brad is right. Like they do seem out to get him. So, you know, it just I know that people are tired of me saying that probably, but you know, listen, if you have something real, file something real. This is not a good case for them to file on. That's all. I mean, I'm, I'm glad that you came on to kind of break it all down because we hear most of the time we hear from the prosecutors because we see the court docs and we don't always get to hear from the defense attorney. So to hear your perspective and lay it all out, I think our viewers are going to be interested to see, you know, the history of Kodak, what's going on right now. I mean, I can't thank you enough. Cohen for coming on and giving us your insight about the case. Always. Thank you for having me. We've requested video in this case. If there's any body cam dash cam interrogation of the arrest, anything like that, any other details, we'll bring them to you as soon as we have them. But for now, that's where today's episode of scandal leaves us. If you like what you saw and you want to see more connect with me personally on social media, like Instagram, you can find me at Sierra Gillespie. Thanks for watching today's episode of scandal. As always, I'm your host Sierra Gillespie, and I'll see you next time. Bye.