Welcome to what might be one of the most legally complex and personally significant cases we'll cover at Justice Is A Process.
On January 21, 2026, Jamell Maurice Demons, the 26-year-old rapper known professionally as YNW Melly, will face a Broward County jury. But not for the two first-degree murder charges that have kept him behind bars for nearly seven years. Not for the capital case where prosecutors seek the death penalty. Not for the alleged October 2018 killings of his childhood friends Anthony "YNW Sakchaser" Williams and Christopher "YNW Juvy" Thomas Jr.
No. This trial is for what allegedly happened during his first murder trial in the summer of 2023.
This trial is about witness tampering.
The State of Florida alleges that while Demons sat in the Broward County Jail awaiting his murder trial, he orchestrated a scheme to prevent his ex-girlfriend, Mariah Hamilton, from testifying. Prosecutors claim he used a fellow jail inmate, alleged Blood gang member Terrence Mathis, to relay messages to his then-co-defendant Cortlen "YNW Bortlen" Henry, who was free on bond. The messages, according to prosecutors, instructed Henry to convince Hamilton to stay away from court.
She never testified. The trial ended in a hung jury, 9-3 in favor of conviction on lesser manslaughter charges.
Now Demons faces a life felony for the alleged witness tampering, an entirely separate case that will be decided before the murder retrial even begins in January 2027.
Let me be clear about something from the outset: Jamell Demons is presumed innocent of all charges. He has not been convicted of murder. He has not been convicted of witness tampering. The fact that he has spent nearly seven years in custody does not make him guilty. The existence of charges does not make them true.
What makes this case worth watching has nothing to do with his celebrity status or his hit song "Murder on My Mind." It's worth watching because it asks fundamental questions about due process, the burden of proof, and whether the system can deliver fair trials for defendants who face such overwhelming public scrutiny.
Over the next several weeks, we'll watch prosecutors try to prove that Demons manipulated the justice system from behind bars. We'll watch his new defense team, led by veteran attorney Drew Findling, argue that the very conditions of his confinement made such coordination impossible, that his lyrics and social media posts from years before the alleged tampering are irrelevant, and that jurors shouldn't even know about the murder charges hanging over his head.
This is the story of that case. This is your opening statement.
To understand how Jamell Demons ended up in a Broward County courtroom facing the possibility of execution, you need to understand where he came from.
Gifford is an unincorporated community in Indian River County, Florida, about 150 miles north of Miami. It's the kind of place that rarely makes headlines for good reasons. High poverty rates. Limited economic opportunity. A violent crime rate that has earned it a reputation as one of the more dangerous places in Florida.
Jamell Maurice Demons was born there on May 1, 1999. His mother, Jamie Demons-King, was just 14 years old at the time. He never knew his father. Some reports identify his father as Thomas Demons; another rapper named Donte "Tha Gift" Taylor has publicly claimed to be his biological father.
What's not disputed is that Demons grew up without a father figure in one of Florida's most challenging environments. He was raised by his teenage mother, surrounded by poverty and violence. By his own account, he found escape in music. He idolized Michael Jackson, Eminem, and Chris Brown as a child. He started singing at family gatherings at five years old. By eighth grade, he was recording his first raps on a friend's microphone.
But the streets of Gifford had other plans.
On October 19, 2015, when Demons was just 16 years old, he was arrested near Vero Beach High School on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of discharging a firearm in public. Police said he fired shots at three people.
He went to prison. And something happened while he was locked up that would change his life and, depending on who you believe, eventually seal his fate.
He wrote "Murder on My Mind."
The song would become his breakout hit, eventually reaching number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its lyrics describe, in graphic detail, the aftermath of a shooting: "I didn't even mean to shoot him. He just caught me by surprise. I reloaded my pistol, cocked it back, and shot him twice. His body dropped down to the floor, and he got teardrops in his eyes. He grabbed me by my hands and said he was afraid to die."
Demons has always maintained the song was fictional, a dark exploration of homicidal ideation born from his experiences behind bars. He told interviewers he wrote the chorus in his cell when he was 15 or 16. The song was released in March 2017, 19 months before the shootings that would send him back to prison.
When prosecutors later sought to use those lyrics against him, his defense argued that the song predated any alleged crime, that rap lyrics are artistic expression, not confessions. It's a debate that has played out in courtrooms across America, including in the YSL RICO case against Young Thug in Atlanta.
After his release in March 2018, Demons moved from Gifford to Miami. In an interview with The FADER that year, he explained why: "The police are very, very dirty and racist. They wanna kill me. I had to get out of that environment."
He was 19 years old, fresh out of prison, and his music career was about to explode.
YNW stands for "Young Nigga World," though Demons has also said it can mean "Young New Wave." It was the name of the rap collective he co-founded with his childhood friends: Anthony Williams, who performed as YNW Sakchaser; Christopher Thomas Jr., who performed as YNW Juvy; and Cortlen Henry, who performed as YNW Bortlen.
These weren't just musical collaborators. They grew up together in Gifford. They shared the same struggles, the same streets, the same dreams of escaping through music. Williams was 21, from Fort Pierce. Thomas was 19, from Gifford. Henry was 20, also from the area.
By the summer of 2018, the collective was gaining serious momentum. Demons released his debut mixtape "I Am You" on August 3, 2018, through 300 Entertainment. The project featured "Murder on My Mind" and was certified Gold by the RIAA. He appeared on Radar's list of "Hottest New Creators." Major artists like Young Thug, Future, and Lil Uzi Vert expressed interest in collaborating with him.
In late October 2018, a short documentary about his rise was completed, featuring footage of him with Williams, Thomas, and Henry. The future seemed limitless.
Four days after that documentary wrapped, two of those men would be dead.
The night of October 25, 2018, was like many other nights for the YNW crew. They gathered at a Fort Lauderdale recording studio to work on music. The session stretched into the early morning hours of October 26.
At approximately 3:20 a.m., surveillance cameras captured the four men leaving the studio and getting into a gray Jeep Compass. According to footage and testimony presented at the 2023 trial, Demons took a seat behind the driver. Henry was driving. Williams sat in the front passenger seat. Thomas sat in the back, on the passenger side.
What happened next depends on who you believe.
According to what Cortlen Henry initially told police and hospital staff, the four friends were driving on Miramar Parkway when they came under fire from another vehicle. A drive-by shooting. They were victims.
At approximately 4:30 a.m., Henry drove the bullet-riddled Jeep to Memorial Hospital in Miramar. Williams and Thomas were inside with multiple gunshot wounds. Both were pronounced dead on arrival.
Williams was 21 years old. He was somebody's son.
Thomas was 19 years old. He was somebody's son too.
For the next three and a half months, that was the official story. Two young rappers, gunned down in a random drive-by. Tragic, but all too common in South Florida.
Demons publicly mourned his friends. "They Took My Brothers From Me Over Jealousy," he wrote on social media. "I know y'all watching over me it's #ynw4l and after." He tagged their Instagram accounts. He performed as if nothing had happened, continuing to build his musical career.
In January 2019, he released "We All Shine," a mixtape featuring a collaboration with Kanye West on the song "Mixed Personalities." His star had never been brighter.
But Miramar Police Detective Mark Moretti was looking at the evidence. And according to his investigation, it didn't add up.
Investigators searched Miramar Parkway, the location Henry claimed the drive-by occurred. They found no shell casings. No broken glass. No physical evidence of a shooting.
Cell phone records and tower pings led investigators to a different location altogether: a desolate area near the intersection of U.S. 27 and Pembroke Road, on the western edge of Broward County, near the Everglades. There, they found evidence of a shooting.
Forensic analysis of the Jeep told a different story than the one Henry had shared. Bullets had entered the vehicle from the outside, yes. But medical examiners and crime scene reconstructionists determined that the fatal shots came from inside the car, specifically from the seat directly behind the driver.
The seat surveillance footage showed Demons occupying when they left the studio.
Thomas was shot in the head at close range, in the middle of his cheek, from the left, while facing forward.
Williams was shot in the back of the head.
According to prosecutors, someone staged the scene after the shootings, firing additional rounds into the Jeep from outside to make it look like a drive-by. Then they drove the bodies to the hospital and reported a random attack.
On February 13, 2019, Jamell Demons and Cortlen Henry were arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder each.
The day of his arrest, before turning himself in, Demons posted on Instagram:
"To all my fans and supporters no I did not get locked up in Washington, but I am turning myself in today I want you guys to know I love you and appreciate every single one of y'all, a couple months ago I lost my two brothers by violence and now the system want to find justice.. unfortunately a lot of rumors and lies are being said but no worries god is with me and my brother @ynw.bortlen and we want y'all to remember it's a ynw Family I love you @ynwsakchaser1 and @ynwjuvy."
He has maintained his innocence ever since.
He has now been in custody at the Broward County Jail for nearly seven years without a conviction.
Nothing about this case moved quickly.
The trial was originally set for March 2022. It was delayed. Reset for May 2022. Delayed again. June 2022. Delayed again.
Demons' defense team filed a speedy trial request in May 2022, demanding the state bring him to trial within 175 days. The state responded by announcing it would seek the death penalty.
In July 2022, a judge ruled Demons would not face capital punishment if convicted. Four months later, an appellate court reversed that decision, making him eligible for the death penalty once again. His attorneys appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. They lost.
The COVID-19 pandemic added further delays. Pretrial motions multiplied. Years passed.
Finally, jury selection began on April 11, 2023, more than four years after Demons' arrest.
The trial began on June 12, 2023, in Broward County Circuit Court. Judge John J. Murphy presided.
Assistant State Attorney Kristine Bradley led the prosecution. In her opening statement, she told jurors that Demons and Henry murdered their two friends and attempted to stage it as a drive-by shooting. She pointed to an Instagram direct message prosecutors claimed was a confession. In response to a friend asking how he was holding up after the deaths, Demons allegedly replied: "Shhh. I did that."
Defense attorney David A. Howard countered that there was zero motive for Demons to murder his best friends. He argued the state's case was "riddled" with reasonable doubt.
"And, if after four years of investigation, the state comes and says, 'Hey, he killed two of his best friends.' And you're wondering why, and their answer is, 'Uh, I dunno.' That's the first indication that they're just guessing and don't know what they're talking about. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is, by itself, reasonable doubt."
The prosecution called firearms experts, medical examiners, and a crime scene reconstruction specialist. Broward Sheriff's Office Sergeant Christopher Williams testified that his analysis showed the shots were fired from inside the Jeep, not from a passing vehicle.
"My determination was that this was not a drive-by shooting," he said. "The shooting happened from somebody inside the car."
The defense focused on what the prosecution didn't have: the murder weapon, which was never recovered. An eyewitness to the shooting. A clear motive.
They called a single witness: Adrian Davis, a childhood friend of Demons who testified that the rapper was at home, asleep, when the shooting occurred. Davis claimed Demons left the Jeep at some point after leaving the studio and was with him when they both learned about the killings later that morning.
"We all cried," Davis testified.
The prosecution pointed to cell phone pedometer records, GPS data, and tower pings that they claimed placed Demons at the scene. The defense argued the data was imprecise and that multiple people in Demons' household shared phones.
Prosecutors brought in a gang expert, Detective Danny Polo, who testified about Demons' alleged connection to the G-Shine Bloods. He said Demons displayed knowledge of the gang's signs and gestures, posed in photos with known gang members, and used coded language in messages. The prosecution argued the murders were committed to "benefit, promote, and further the interests of a criminal gang."
The defense called this speculation, noting that gang affiliation, even if proven, doesn't prove murder.
One of the most controversial moments of the trial came when prosecutors called Detective Danny Polo, a gang expert from the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Polo testified while wearing a ski mask to conceal his identity. A juror complained about this, questioning whether the concealment was appropriate. Judge Murphy allowed the testimony to proceed.
According to Polo, Demons displayed knowledge of the G-Shine Bloods' signs, symbols, and gestures. He testified that Demons flashed gang signs in multiple videos, posed in photos with known gang members, and used coded language in messages, including substituting certain letters in ways allegedly associated with Blood gang communication.
Prosecutors argued the gang evidence was relevant to motive. They claimed the murders were committed to "benefit, promote, and further the interests of a criminal gang." But what exactly that motive was remained unclear.
The defense pushed back hard. They argued that gang affiliation, even if proven, doesn't prove murder. Many young men from Gifford and similar communities have connections to street culture without being killers. And critically, the prosecution never explained why Demons would murder his best friends, his collaborators, the men he grew up with and built his career alongside.
If this was a gang hit, what was the conflict? What did Williams and Thomas do to warrant execution? The state's answer, according to defense attorney David Howard, was essentially "we don't know."
"That's the first indication that they're just guessing," Howard told the jury.
During Detective Mark Moretti's testimony, prosecutors displayed text message exchanges between the YNW members in the months before the shooting.
Assistant State Attorney Kristine Bradley highlighted a message from August 30, 2018, about two months before the killings. Williams wrote to Demons: "Before I let sum happen to me or play wit my family everybody will die."
Prosecutors argued this showed tension between the friends, a conflict over money and recognition that could have escalated to violence.
But other messages told a different story. The same exchanges showed the men interacting as close friends, expressing affection for each other, discussing plans to collaborate and succeed together. Arguments happened, as they do among friends, but reconciliation followed.
"Ima pay u back for everything u did for me," Demons allegedly wrote. "Every idea all dat."
Were these the words of a man planning to murder his friend? Or the words of friends navigating the inevitable conflicts that arise when young people chase fame together?
The text messages were ambiguous. Depending on which ones you emphasized, they could support either narrative.
Forensic analysts testified about DNA found in the Jeep. The evidence was... inconclusive.
Blood was everywhere, as you'd expect in a vehicle where two men were shot to death. But the DNA analysis didn't definitively place Demons as the shooter. There was no smoking gun, literally or figuratively.
"The DNA evidence is inconclusive," defense attorney David Howard said during arguments. "The cell tower evidence... it's not accurate, and when it's accurate is not specific."
The defense argued that the prosecution was asking jurors to speculate, to fill in gaps with assumptions rather than proof.
Adrian Davis was the only defense witness who testified about the night of the murders.
According to Davis, who described himself as a childhood friend of Demons, the rapper left the Jeep at some point after the group departed the recording studio. Demons got into another vehicle where Davis was waiting. The two drove to Demons' home.
Later that morning, while they were at the house together, they learned about the shootings. According to Davis, both he and Demons cried when they heard the news.
"We all cried," Davis testified.
Prosecutors challenged Davis's account, suggesting he was lying to protect his friend. The surveillance footage from the studio clearly showed Demons getting into the back seat of the Jeep. How and when did he exit?
Davis claimed enough time passed between leaving the studio and the shooting for Demons to have left the vehicle. The prosecution argued this was implausible, that Davis was an unreliable witness with every reason to lie.
The jury had to decide who to believe.
This became one of the central disputes of the trial.
Surveillance video from outside the Fort Lauderdale recording studio captured the four men leaving and getting into the Jeep at approximately 3:20 a.m. Demons was seen taking the seat behind the driver.
But no surveillance footage captured the shooting itself. No video showed Demons firing a weapon. No eyewitness saw him pull the trigger.
Between the studio footage and the arrival at the hospital, there was a gap. The prosecution used cell phone data and forensic analysis to argue what happened during that gap. The defense argued the gap itself created reasonable doubt.
"Enough time passed between the recording of the surveillance video in one city and the shooting in another for Melly to have left and someone else to have committed the crime," the defense argued.
Was that plausible? The prosecution said no. The defense said yes. The jury couldn't agree.
The jury began deliberations on July 20, 2023. They deliberated for fourteen hours over three days. Judge Murphy gave them an Allen charge, a jury instruction that urges deadlocked jurors to reconsider their positions and try to reach consensus.
They couldn't reach unanimity.
On July 22, 2023, Judge Murphy declared a mistrial.
The reaction in the courtroom was captured on video. Demons, who had sat largely expressionless throughout the trial, struggled to contain his emotions. He wasn't going home, but he wasn't being convicted either. The state had failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to twelve jurors.
In interviews after the trial, a juror revealed the vote was 9-3, but not in the way many expected. Nine jurors favored conviction on the lesser offense of manslaughter, not first-degree murder. Only three wanted full conviction on the top charges.
But three jurors apparently believed the state had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt at all.
According to an anonymous juror who spoke with local media, one juror was particularly resistant to conviction. That single holdout, the juror suggested, may have prevented a guilty verdict.
Demons remained in custody. Prosecutors announced they would retry him. The case that had already consumed years was far from over.
Within months of the mistrial, the legal landscape shifted dramatically.
On October 3, 2023, Cortlen Henry was arrested in Miami on new charges. The next day, prosecutors filed witness tampering charges against both Henry and Demons. A third man, Terrence Mathis, was also charged.
Here's what prosecutors allege:
During the first murder trial, in the summer of 2023, Demons was housed at the Broward Main Jail. His phone privileges had been revoked due to previous violations. He couldn't directly contact anyone outside the facility.
But according to prosecutors, he found a way.
Terrence Mathis was another inmate at the Broward jail, allegedly a fellow member of an offshoot of the Bloods street gang. Investigators believe Mathis and Demons used jail phone calls made by other inmates, as well as letters passed between them, to relay messages.
The target of those messages, according to prosecutors, was Mariah Hamilton.
Hamilton was Demons' ex-girlfriend. She was with him in 2018, around the time of the murders. Prosecutors considered her a material witness. In 2022, they obtained a court order requiring her to testify at Demons' trial.
A deposition was scheduled for May 5, 2023. Hamilton didn't appear.
The trial began in June 2023. Hamilton never took the stand.
Prosecutors claim Demons instructed Henry, who was free on bond at the time, to convince Hamilton not to cooperate with investigators or testify in court. They say Henry made contact with Hamilton and her mother, Felicia Holmes. They say he relayed messages from Demons.
According to an arrest warrant, Henry "along with others" engaged in "misleading conduct toward another person with the intent to cause or induce that person to withhold testimony" during Demons' first trial. Detectives say Henry's actions against the witness occurred from around April 10 to July 22, 2023, the day the mistrial was declared.
In October 2023, prosecutors added six more charges to the original tampering count: directing the activities of a criminal gang, conspiracy to commit tampering, two counts of solicitation to commit tampering, and two counts of unlawful use of a two-way communication device.
The charges were filed by Alixandra Buckelew, who replaced Kristine Bradley as lead prosecutor after Bradley was removed from the case. Buckelew previously helped convict the men responsible for the murder of rapper XXXTentacion.
But there's another version of events.
Mariah Hamilton has said publicly that she felt threatened, but not by Demons or Henry. She claims law enforcement pressured her.
"When the situation first happened, me and my mom were, well, I was threatened," Hamilton said in a 2023 interview with Law & Crime. "I was 17, about to turn 18. They came to my house, they were telling me that they were gonna arrest me with accessory after the fact."
Think about that for a moment. A 17-year-old girl, the girlfriend of a rapper who was just arrested for double murder, claims police threatened to charge her as an accessory unless she cooperated.
Her attorney has claimed she never received a proper subpoena to appear in court for her May 2023 deposition. If true, her failure to appear may have been technical rather than intentional evasion.
In January 2025, Hamilton was arrested at Miami International Airport after returning from a trip to El Salvador. A warrant had been issued for her failure to testify at the 2023 trial. Federal agents detained her upon her return to the United States.
She spent nearly two weeks in the Broward County Jail for civil contempt, locked up in the same facility where Demons has spent nearly seven years.
In February 2025, Hamilton appeared in court wearing a light blue Broward jail jumpsuit, shackled, seated in the jury box while Demons sat at the defense table on the other side of the room. It was the first time they had been in the same room since his arrest.
Judge Martin Fein released her after she committed to appear at all future court proceedings. She now wears an ankle monitor and must stay in contact with both prosecutors and defense attorneys.
"Miss Hamilton, you've got to show up," Judge Fein told her. "If someone subpoenas you for a deposition, a hearing, or a trial, whether that's the state or the defense, you've gotta answer the subpoena."
She is expected to be subpoenaed to testify at both the witness tampering trial and the murder retrial in 2027.
As for the witness tampering case? Her reluctance to testify is central to the prosecution's theory. But whether she was intimidated by Demons and his associates or pressured by law enforcement is a question that cuts to the heart of the case.
The prosecution considers Hamilton a "material witness" in the murder case. But what exactly does she know?
According to court filings, she was Demons' girlfriend in 2018, around the time of the murders. Prosecutors believe she has information about "the shooting and the defendant's actions before and after it happened."
What that information is remains unclear from public records. Was she present during conversations that implicate Demons? Did she witness something relevant to the case? Does she have knowledge of planning or aftermath?
Whatever she knows, prosecutors believe it's important enough to pursue witness tampering charges against multiple defendants. They believe Demons went to "great lengths" to prevent her from sharing that information.
"The defendant went to great lengths to have others contact Mariah Hamilton for him," the prosecution wrote in court filings. "Because he was in jail and had his phone privileges taken away previously by BSO for numerous violations, he utilized fellow gang members to do his dirty work. Not only did he use his fellow gang member Terrence Mathis, who was in custody with him, he also utilized his co-defendant Cortlen Henry, who was out on pretrial release at the time, to be his messenger."
Part of the prosecution's evidence includes Instagram direct messages allegedly showing Henry attempting to influence Hamilton's testimony.
According to reports, the messages show Henry contacting Hamilton and offering money. The specific content and context of the messages have not been fully disclosed publicly, but prosecutors claim they demonstrate a coordinated effort to prevent her testimony.
The defense may argue that any contact between Henry and Hamilton was personal, not part of an obstruction scheme. They were all part of the same social circle. Communication between them wouldn't necessarily be sinister.
But prosecutors claim the timing and content of the messages prove otherwise. They claim the communications coincided with key moments in the trial preparation and explicitly sought to influence whether Hamilton would cooperate.
The jury will have to evaluate these messages and decide what they prove.
In September 2025, just a day before his own murder trial was set to begin, Cortlen Henry accepted a plea deal.
He pleaded no contest to two counts of accessory after the fact in connection with the deaths of Williams and Thomas. He also pleaded to witness tampering charges.
In exchange, prosecutors dropped the two first-degree murder charges that could have sent him to prison for life.
Judge Martin Fein sentenced Henry to 10 years in prison, with credit for time already served. He'll also serve six years of probation after his release.
"I don't know how your lawyers pulled this off," Judge Fein remarked in court.
As part of the deal, Henry must provide a sworn statement explaining his role in the murders. However, according to his attorney Fred Haddad, Henry is not required to testify against Demons at the murder retrial.
"Henry will not be required to testify against Melly, his longtime friend, as part of the negotiated plea," Haddad said.
Henry's plea does not require him to admit that Demons shot Williams and Thomas. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt. But it removes him as a co-defendant and leaves Demons to face the murder charges alone.
It also leaves Demons to face the witness tampering charges. Unlike Henry, who resolved his tampering charges as part of the plea deal, Demons is going to trial.
Under Florida Statute 914.22, tampering with a witness, victim, or informant occurs when a person knowingly uses intimidation, physical force, threats, misleading conduct, or offers of financial gain to prevent someone from testifying or cooperating with law enforcement.
The severity of the charge depends on the underlying case.
Because Demons is charged with tampering in connection with a capital murder case, he faces a life felony. If convicted, he could receive up to life in prison.
He is charged with multiple counts related to the alleged scheme:
The trial is set to begin with jury selection on January 21, 2026, before Judge Martin Fein at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale.
Demons' defense team has filed a series of motions designed to limit what prosecutors can present to the jury. The pretrial hearings on these motions began on January 6, 2026.
The key motions include:
Motion to Exclude Murder Charges: The defense is asking Judge Fein to prohibit prosecutors from telling the jury that Demons is charged with double murder. They argue that revealing the murder charges would be "highly prejudicial and of limited value." Jurors who know Demons is fighting for his life in a separate case might assume he would have a powerful motive to silence witnesses, even without direct evidence of tampering.
Motion to Inspect Jail Cell: Defense attorneys want to photograph and document Demons' cell at the Broward County Jail, which is set up to isolate him from other inmates. The defense appears to be laying groundwork for an argument that the physical conditions of his confinement made coordinating a witness tampering scheme impossible or unlikely.
Motion to Exclude Lyrics: The defense is asking the court to bar prosecutors from introducing Demons' song lyrics as evidence. They argue that the lyrics were written years before the alleged tampering and are irrelevant to the current charges. "None of the lyrics were written during the time the alleged crimes of witness tampering occurred," the motion states. "The lyrics are irrelevant to Demons' innocence or guilt."
Motion to Exclude Social Media: Similarly, the defense wants to block the introduction of Demons' social media records from 2018 and 2019, arguing that posts made four or more years before the alleged crimes shouldn't be admissible.
Motion for Plain Clothes: The defense successfully argued that Demons should not have to appear in court wearing his jail jumpsuit. He will appear in civilian clothing to avoid the prejudicial effect of appearing as an incarcerated defendant.
To convict Demons of witness tampering, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he:
Prosecutors claim they have jailhouse phone calls and intercepted communications that show Demons coordinating with Mathis and Henry. They claim leaked Instagram messages show Henry attempting to influence Hamilton's testimony and offering money.
The defense will likely challenge the interpretation of these communications, argue that any contact with Hamilton was not meant to intimidate or obstruct, and potentially point to Hamilton's own claims that law enforcement, not the defendants, pressured her.
In August 2025, Demons fired his longtime defense team, including lead attorney Raven Liberty, and hired new counsel.
The change came after it was revealed that Liberty herself was under investigation by the Broward County Sheriff's Office for potential witness tampering in connection with the case. No charges have been filed against her, and the nature of the investigation has not been publicly disclosed. Defense attorneys learned about the probe only when Apple notified them that information had been turned over to law enforcement.
"An attorney being under criminal investigation by the same prosecutorial body would constitute a conflict of interest," Demons' new lawyers wrote in a court filing. "Mr. Demons' current team may be unable to fully litigate this issue without fear of further recrimination in the criminal case against one of the team."
The irony is stark. Demons faces witness tampering charges. Now his own attorney is reportedly under investigation for the same offense.
Liberty had represented Demons for six and a half years, through countless hearings, motions, and the entire first trial. She was a vocal advocate, accusing prosecutors of Brady violations and calling the tampering charges "a transparent and desperate attempt by the State Attorney's office to distract the public."
In a statement after her removal, Liberty said: "After discussions with Jamell and the broader team, we've come to the collective agreement that it's in his best interest to move forward with new counsel. In doing so, we are circumventing the ability of the Broward State's Attorney to deploy further bad faith tactics to delay the trial and deny Jamell his Constitutional rights."
His new lead counsel is Drew Findling, a veteran Atlanta criminal defense attorney with a who's-who list of high-profile clients: Cardi B, Gucci Mane, Kodak Black, Offset, Lil Durk, and even former President Donald Trump.
Findling built his reputation as a tenacious defender of the accused. He represented Cardi B on assault charges stemming from an incident at a Queens strip club. He defended Offset on drug and gun charges following a 2018 traffic stop. He helped Gucci Mane secure a plea deal on federal gun charges. He's currently defending Lil Durk in a federal murder-for-hire case. His involvement signals that Demons' defense is prepared to fight hard.
Joining Findling is Carey Haughwout, a Florida attorney who recently retired to private practice after serving as Palm Beach County's public defender for more than two decades. Haughwout brings deep experience in Florida criminal defense and appellate law.
"Melly gonna fuck around and come home fucking wit Drew! That's the right lawyer," 50 Cent posted on Instagram after learning of the change.
"This is the most confident and comfortable we've ever felt because of the counsel that we have," Demons' manager, 100KTrack, said in a December 2025 interview.
Florida Statute 914.22 is clear about what constitutes witness tampering. The law prohibits anyone from using physical force, threats, intimidation, misleading conduct, or offers of financial gain to:
The penalties scale based on the severity of the underlying case:
Because Demons is accused of tampering in connection with a capital murder case, he faces a life felony charge.
It's worth understanding the stakes in the underlying murder case, because they inform everything about the witness tampering allegations.
If convicted of first-degree murder in Florida, Demons could face the death penalty. Under a 2023 law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida allows a jury to recommend death if at least eight of twelve jurors agree. This is the lowest threshold in the country.
If convicted, Demons could be one of the first defendants sentenced under this new non-unanimous death penalty law.
The first trial ended with a 9-3 vote for conviction on manslaughter, not first-degree murder. But three jurors refused to convict at all. In a system that now requires only eight votes for a death recommendation, the stakes in the retrial are extraordinarily high.
This context matters for the witness tampering case. Prosecutors will argue that Demons had every reason to prevent witnesses from testifying. He was facing execution. The defense will argue that this same context makes the charges prejudicial, that jurors will assume a man facing death would do anything to survive.
The murder case has been plagued by allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.
In September 2023, defense attorneys accused prosecutors of failing to disclose that the lead detective in the case, Mark Moretti of the Miramar Police Department, had been accused by a fellow prosecutor of asking a Broward Sheriff's deputy to lie about being present during a search warrant execution.
Assistant State Attorney Michelle Boutros testified that she overheard Moretti ask the deputy to lie about being present when Moretti seized a cell phone from Demons' mother, Jamie King, in October 2022. The search was allegedly conducted outside Moretti's jurisdiction.
Boutros reported the alleged statement to her supervisors and withdrew from the investigation. She said she couldn't work with the detective. She reported Moretti to Miramar's internal affairs unit.
Prosecutors claimed Moretti was joking. Miramar's internal affairs cleared him of wrongdoing.
But the defense argued this was a Brady violation, a failure to disclose evidence favorable to the defense. Under Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors are required to turn over any evidence that could help the defendant. Information that could be used to impeach a key witness, like evidence suggesting the lead detective was willing to lie, falls squarely within this requirement.
Lead prosecutor Kristine Bradley was removed from the case in October 2023. Judge Murphy ruled that while he didn't find Bradley's integrity had been compromised, she couldn't serve as a prosecutor if the defense was planning to call her as a witness regarding the detective's credibility.
The prosecution continued under Alixandra Buckelew.
In all the legal maneuvering and celebrity drama, it's easy to forget that two young men lost their lives on October 26, 2018. Two families have spent more than seven years waiting for answers. Two sets of parents, siblings, friends, and loved ones have lived with grief while the courts have processed motions, granted delays, and held hearings.
Christopher Jermaine Thomas Jr. was 19 years old when he died on October 26, 2018.
He was born on November 20, 1998, in Gifford, Florida. He grew up in the same neighborhood as Demons and Henry, navigating the same challenges, dreaming the same dreams of escape through music. He performed under the name YNW Juvy, one of the founding members of the YNW collective that was just beginning to attract national attention.
Those who knew him described him as someone with talent and ambition. He was working to build a career in hip hop alongside his childhood friends. The documentary about YNW Melly that was completed just days before the shooting featured Thomas prominently, a young man on the verge of something bigger.
His father, Christopher Thomas Sr., has been one of the most vocal voices demanding justice.
"They are going to extreme measures to try to cover up or convince people not to testify," Thomas told the Law & Crime podcast after the witness tampering charges were filed. "All I'm thinking is they don't care nothing about my son. They don't care about Chris."
"Everybody in the world knows who the evidence points to," Thomas continued. "But the people that is lying and covering up, they need to do something about them people, too. In my mind, they're just as guilty."
For Christopher Thomas Sr., the delays, the mistrial, and now the witness tampering allegations are all part of a system that has failed to deliver justice for his son. Seven years after the shooting, there has been no conviction. The man charged with his son's murder remains in jail but unconvicted.
Christopher Jr. was buried at Gifford Cemetery in Indian River County. His grave marker stands in the same community where he grew up, where he dreamed of becoming a star, where his life was cut short at 19.
Anthony D'Andre Williams was 21 years old when he died.
Born on July 28, 1997, Williams was from Fort Pierce, just north of Gifford. He attended Vero Beach High School before pursuing his music career. He performed as YNW Sakchaser, a key member of the collective that was gaining momentum in 2018.
Like Thomas, Williams was shot multiple times in the early morning hours of October 26, 2018. Like Thomas, medical examiners determined the fatal shot came from inside the vehicle, not from a drive-by attacker as initially reported.
Both men were pronounced dead at Memorial Hospital in Miramar. Both were aspiring rappers whose dreams ended in violence.
A memorial page on the Gun Memorial website includes comments from people who knew and loved Williams. One simply wrote: "U took my only son."
Whatever happened that night, two families lost their children. Two young men who had their whole lives ahead of them were shot to death in the back of a Jeep. The question of who pulled the trigger, and whether the justice system will ever hold anyone accountable, has consumed years of legal proceedings.
For the Williams and Thomas families, the witness tampering trial is another step in a journey that has brought no resolution. Demons may face additional charges, may even be convicted of obstructing the search for truth. But that won't bring back their sons. It won't fill the emptiness. It won't answer the question that haunts every parent who has lost a child to violence: Why?
Beyond the criminal proceedings, the victims' families have pursued civil litigation.
Attorney John M. Phillips represents the family of Anthony Williams in a civil wrongful death lawsuit. After Cortlen Henry accepted his plea deal in September 2025, Phillips moved quickly.
"Justice for Juvy! Great day today in the YNW Melly double murder case," Phillips wrote on Instagram after the plea. "YNW Bortlen was set to go to trial this week and took a plea deal to not only accessory after the fact but witness tampering. He was already adjudicated guilty by the judge and will be sentenced to 10 years minus time served or gain time, followed by 6 years probation. He is also giving a proffer, which means he will speak to the State. We simultaneously requested his deposition in the civil case."
The civil case operates under different rules than the criminal prosecution. The burden of proof is lower (preponderance of the evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt). Different evidence may be admissible. And critically, defendants can be compelled to testify, unlike in criminal proceedings where the Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination.
If the civil case proceeds, it could produce testimony and evidence that isn't available in the criminal trials. Henry's proffer statement, the sworn account of his role in the murders that he provided as part of his plea deal, could become a key piece of evidence.
For the victims' families, the civil case may offer another avenue to truth, even if the criminal system continues to delay and disappoint.
At Justice Is A Process, we don't watch trials to cheer for conviction or acquittal. We watch to see whether the system operates fairly.
Here's what I'll be watching for in the witness tampering trial:
Can the prosecution prove its case without relying on prejudicial evidence?
If jurors learn that Demons is facing the death penalty for double murder, will they be able to fairly assess whether the state has proven the tampering charges beyond a reasonable doubt? Or will the shadow of the murder case color everything?
Judge Fein's rulings on the defense motions will be critical. If he allows prosecutors to reference the murder charges, the lyrics, and the social media posts, the defense will face an uphill battle. If he limits the scope of evidence to the actual alleged tampering conduct, the trial becomes a more straightforward question of whether the state can prove Demons coordinated a scheme from behind bars.
What do the communications actually show?
Prosecutors claim they have phone calls and messages proving the scheme. But context matters. Were the communications explicit instructions to prevent testimony? Or were they subject to interpretation? Were they discussions that could have had innocent explanations?
The defense will likely argue that any contact between Demons, Mathis, Henry, and Hamilton was not meant to obstruct justice. They may argue the communications were misinterpreted or taken out of context.
What role will Hamilton play?
Mariah Hamilton is at the center of this case. She didn't testify at the first murder trial. She was arrested and jailed for her failure to appear. She claims law enforcement, not the defendants, pressured her.
Will she testify at the tampering trial? If so, what will she say? Will she support the prosecution's theory that she was intimidated by Demons' associates? Or will she undermine it by describing the pressure she felt from investigators?
What about the jail conditions?
The defense wants to document Demons' cell, which is set up to isolate him from other inmates. This suggests they plan to argue that the conditions of his confinement made coordinating a witness tampering scheme difficult or impossible.
How did messages allegedly pass between Demons and Mathis? How did they reach Henry on the outside? The prosecution will need to explain the mechanics of the alleged scheme. The defense will try to poke holes in that explanation.
Is this fair?
Demons has been in custody for nearly seven years without a conviction. His murder retrial has been delayed until January 2027, meaning he will have spent eight years behind bars before the jury even hears opening statements.
Now he faces a separate trial on witness tampering charges, a trial that could result in a life sentence even before the murder case is resolved.
Is this how the system should work? Is this due process? Or is this a defendant being buried under the weight of charge after charge, trial after trial, with no end in sight?
Drew Findling and Carey Haughwout face a monumental task: defending a man facing multiple serious charges while preventing the shadow of one case from infecting the other.
If the jury in the witness tampering case learns that Demons is charged with double murder and facing the death penalty, human nature suggests they will view the tampering allegations differently. A man fighting for his life has the most powerful motive imaginable to silence witnesses.
But motive isn't proof. Having a reason to do something doesn't mean you did it.
The defense's motion to exclude the murder charges from the tampering trial is strategically crucial. If successful, jurors will assess the tampering evidence without knowing the full stakes of the underlying case. They'll hear about communications and alleged pressure on a witness, but they won't know why that witness was so important.
This creates a different calculation. Without the murder context, the case becomes: Did Demons coordinate with others to prevent someone from testifying? That's still a serious allegation, but it's not wrapped in the emotional weight of a double homicide and potential execution.
The motion to inspect and photograph Demons' jail cell suggests another line of defense: that the physical conditions of his incarceration made the alleged scheme impractical.
If Demons was isolated from other inmates, how did he communicate with Mathis? If his phone privileges were revoked, how did he coordinate with the outside world?
The prosecution alleges he found workarounds, using other inmates' phone calls and passing letters. But the defense may argue these alleged workarounds are speculation, that the physical barriers between Demons and the outside world would have made any coordinated scheme extraordinarily difficult.
The motion to exclude lyrics continues a battle that has played out across the country.
Rap lyrics have been used as evidence in criminal trials for decades, often against young Black men. Defense attorneys and civil liberties advocates have argued this practice is fundamentally unfair, that rap is artistic expression, often fictional or exaggerated, and should not be treated as confession.
California has passed legislation limiting the use of creative expression as evidence in criminal trials. New York has considered similar measures. A federal bill has been introduced in Congress.
In the YNW Melly case, the defense argues that lyrics written years before the alleged tampering are irrelevant. "Murder on My Mind" was released in 2017. The alleged tampering occurred in 2023. What possible connection could song lyrics from six years earlier have to the current charges?
Prosecutors might argue the lyrics speak to Demons' character, his willingness to contemplate violence. The defense will counter that this is exactly the kind of prejudicial, irrelevant evidence that should be excluded.
Judge Fein's ruling will have implications beyond this case.
Prosecutors must prove that Demons knowingly and intentionally coordinated a scheme to prevent Mariah Hamilton from testifying.
Their theory: Demons, unable to contact the outside world directly because his phone privileges had been revoked, turned to a fellow inmate, Terrence Mathis, an alleged member of the same Blood gang offshoot. Mathis relayed messages to Henry, who was free on bond. Henry made contact with Hamilton and convinced her not to cooperate.
The result: Hamilton didn't appear for her deposition in May 2023. She didn't testify at the trial that summer. The jury deadlocked, and Demons survived for another day.
Prosecutors claim to have:
The strength of this evidence will determine the outcome of the trial. If the communications are explicit, direct instructions to prevent testimony, the prosecution has a strong case. If they're ambiguous, subject to interpretation, the defense has room to argue reasonable doubt.
The prosecution doesn't technically have to prove motive in a criminal case. They have to prove that the defendant committed the act.
But juries want to understand why. The "why" makes the "what" believable.
The prosecution's motive is obvious: Demons was facing the death penalty. Hamilton apparently had information that could hurt his defense. He wanted her to stay quiet.
This is where the motion to exclude the murder charges becomes so important. If the jury knows about the murder case, the motive is self-evident. If they don't, the prosecution has to explain why Demons would risk additional charges to prevent this particular person from testifying, and they might not be able to do so without revealing the underlying case.
Whatever happens in the witness tampering case, Jamell Demons will still face a murder retrial in January 2027.
That case has its own set of complexities:
If Demons is convicted of witness tampering, will that conviction be admissible at his murder trial? Will prosecutors argue that his efforts to silence witnesses demonstrate his guilt in the underlying case?
These are questions for another day. But they illustrate how interconnected these proceedings have become.
Demons' defense has raised constitutional concerns about his prolonged pretrial detention. He has been in custody for nearly seven years without a conviction.
In May 2025, his attorneys sought bond, arguing his constitutional rights were being violated. They proposed stringent conditions: house arrest, GPS ankle monitoring, 24/7 private security reporting to the court, with his record label covering the costs.
Prosecutors opposed bond, citing the capital nature of the charges and the tampering allegations.
Bond was denied.
At what point does pretrial detention become unconstitutional punishment? The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a speedy trial. The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail. But when the government keeps delaying proceedings, when a defendant sits in jail for years awaiting trial, when does that detention violate fundamental constitutional protections?
These questions may ultimately be decided on appeal, but they hang over this case like a cloud.
My father, Steven M. Askin, spent his career fighting for the accused. He went to prison for refusing to violate attorney-client privilege. He was criminally convicted for teaching people their constitutional rights from a coffee shop.
He taught me that the system only works if we force it to work. If we watch. If we question. If we refuse to let them operate in darkness.
That's what we do at Justice Is A Process.
Jamell Demons is not a sympathetic defendant by most people's standards. He's accused of murdering two of his childhood friends. His lyrics describe killing in graphic detail. He's been linked to gang activity. His first trial ended with most jurors wanting to convict him.
But none of that makes him guilty.
The presumption of innocence is not reserved for people we like. Due process is not only for those we find sympathetic. The burden of proof doesn't shift because the defendant has made music we find disturbing.
If we want a justice system that protects the innocent, we have to demand that it proves the guilty are actually guilty. Every shortcut erodes the system for everyone. Every assumption of guilt before verdict weakens the protections that could someday protect you or someone you love.
So we'll watch.
We'll watch the witness tampering trial that begins January 21, 2026. We'll watch prosecutors try to prove that Demons coordinated a scheme from behind bars. We'll watch his defense team argue that the conditions of his confinement made such coordination impossible, that his lyrics are irrelevant, that jurors shouldn't know about the murder charges.
We'll watch to see whether the process is fair. Whether each side is heard. Whether constitutional protections are honored.
And we'll report what we see, without assuming guilt, without cheerleading for either side. Because that's what watchdog journalism demands.
Two young men lost their lives on October 26, 2018. Their families deserve answers. Their memories deserve justice.
Jamell Demons deserves a fair trial. He deserves to have the state prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt before he's punished for anything.
Both of those things can be true at the same time.
This is Justice Is A Process. Let's see whether justice actually happens.
This report was compiled from the following sources:
All factual claims have been verified against multiple sources where possible. Where sources conflict, the discrepancy has been noted. All statements attributed to parties involved are sourced from public records, news reports, or official statements.
This report was prepared by Justice Is A Process for educational purposes. It represents factual reporting based on publicly available information. Jamell Demons is presumed innocent of all charges until proven guilty in a court of law.
For daily coverage of the Florida v. Jamell Demons witness tampering trial beginning January 21, 2026, subscribe to Justice Is A Process on YouTube and follow our coverage at justiceisaprocess.com.
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