Meek Mill aims to spend as much time as he can helping his prison ping-pong pal get out of jail, insisting he's behind bars because of a "statute".
The rapper walked free from a correctional institute in Chester, Pennsylvania on Tuesday (24Apr18) after state lawmakers overturned a decision to keep him locked up without bail made by his case judge earlier this month, and now he's out to seek justice for other inmates he feels have been wrongly incarcerated.
Meek was jailed back in November (17) for violating his probation on a 2007 guns and drugs charge that is now under review, due to a police corruption scandal. He is due back in court in June (18), when it will be determined if his original charges can be dismissed.
But the rap star isn't wasting any time in his campaign to speak out for people he met in prison, who he feels shouldn't be there.
"I feel like I'm indebted to the people who have been wrongly accused," he tells Rolling Stone. "The injustice and the mistakes, and the errors of the system that put some of these men and women in these positions.
"A lot of people are mentally stable and they knew what they were doing and they made very bad choices that put them in bad situations. But we all make bad choices sometimes."
And there's one guy he has on his mind constantly, adding, "I’m always going to a guy who I played ping-pong as an example. I watched him open his legal mail from superior court and they tell him, in a briefing, that 'We know you're innocent, but due to certain statutes, you're still in prison'. I see the way he fought for 26 years.
"His name is Eric Reddet. His ruling said, 'It is clear to all... that it's likely that an innocent man sits behind bars for no better reason than a poorly conceived statute. Under the state's post conviction, defendant must file a petition for a relief within a year of the judgment becoming final'.
"There are a few exceptions, one which is if the defendant obtains new evidence, but even then the petition must be filed within 60 days of when the claim could have been presented. So in my case, we found out that a cop was corrupted from 11 years ago, and that had been hidden for 11 years. But once you find out that, you got 60 days to bring that evidence forward, and if you miss them 60 days, it doesn't matter if you innocent or not."
Meek Mill rages, "A man is in jail because of a statute, not because if he really did it, not because he's guilty or he's innocent, but because of a statute!"
