Page 47 of This Is Law 3

Chapter Nineteen

SEVYN ‘LAW’ CRAWFORD

I was in the meeting room with all my attorney’s.

Today, Reggie would be given his sentence in court, and we were all bunched up in here, waiting to see what the verdict was going to be.

While everyone was sitting, I was in the back of the room standing, with my arms crossed, already knowing how this shit was going to play out, but I still was locked in like everyone else.

For the months that Dominic had this case, he had been show boating, thinking that he was the illest nigga in Miami, and like he had some kind of magic that other attorneys didn’t have.

Because I had that case before he did, I knew that there wasn’t much saving for Reggie.

In all my years of being in the game, that was one case that I wasn’t too confident about.

I was going to put all the work in, just as I would any other client, but it really would be performing a miracle because he had his hands in too many things, and too much evidence was up against him.

Judge Morris had this case. He was the same judge that had denied him his bond, and he turned around, and did the same thing to Dutch.

I’ve been in Judge Morris’s courtroom plenty of times, and I knew that he was tough.

The nigga was fair though. Come at him with facts, evidence to back up the shit you were claiming, and you would have your way with him.

People went wrong with judge Morris because they wouldn’t be prepared.

Because I wasn’t a hating ass nigga, I’ll give Dominic his credit where it was due, and say that him, and his team did the best that they could do with what was against them.

He wasn’t as performative in court, making it about him as I thought he would be, but he had been eating up the press, loving the attention that he was getting.

A lot was at stake for him. Reggie had fans all over the world that were counting on him, so Dominic did all that he could do in court to help him get out of the fucked-up situation that he was in.

I watched as judge Morris cleared his throat, and he leaned up closer into the mic that was in front of him.

“On count one, which is racketeering under the RICO statue, how do you find the defendant?” judge Morris asked. Those seconds, where we waited for a member of the jury to respond sounded like the longest seconds in the world.

“Guilty,” a woman who looked to have been in her late 50’s responded. She was a black woman, who probably never heard a song from Reggie a day in her life, which was good because it showed that she wouldn’t be biased.

The camera paneled over to Reggie, who was standing up next to Dominic.

Reggie cleaned up nice, rocking a navy-blue Armani suit.

He was already a small dude, but you could tell that he was under a great amount of stress with this case, so looking at him, he was even smaller than he was from the last time that I’d seen him.

His face looked a little sunken in as well.

Shit never made me feel good when I had to see another black young man get all that time because it made me think of my boys.

Reasons like this is why I went so hard on Creed, and Legend because I never wanted them to have to stand in front of a judge and receive such harsh sentencing.

“On count two, conspiracy to murder, how do you find?” judge Morris asked the member of the jury again.

“Guilty,” she responded after about three seconds. When that was called out, all I could do was shake my head because his life was over.

I heard his mama, and baby mama scream out.

His mom was standing next to his baby mama, who was holding their daughter in her arms. All that tough shit went out the window for Reggie because when the camera was placed back on him, you saw that tear fall from his eye because even he knew his life was over.

“Count three, distribution of controlled substances, how do you find the defendant?” judge Morris asked again.

“Guilty,” she read the verdict again.

By the 5 th guilty verdict, I mentally tapped out.

Seeing the way they had to pull his mama out of that courtroom because the shit was too heavy for her, it put me in a position where I couldn’t even bear to watch it.

I had black boys, so certain stuff I couldn’t stand to look at.

Reggie was still a young nigga. Hadn’t even made it to see twenty- five, and his life was now over.

At the end, when I tapped back in, forcing myself to listen to the judge read off all those charges again, and give out the 85-year sentence that he would receive, it felt like the room was spinning.

Reasons like this is why I would never let a motha fucka convince me that selling dope was cool.

It was a risk that you took being out on that block.

Yeah, the shit came with street credit, fame, money, nice cars, jewelry, and shit, but moving weight wasn’t the only way that a black man could put money in his pockets.

“85 years. Damn man! What the fuck was Dominic, and his team doing? They didn’t get a single ‘not guilty’ verdict.

They found him guilty of every single last charge.

That is crazy. He about to catch a lot of heat with this one,” one of the attorney’s Alex came over, and said to me. I couldn’t agree with him more.

“Cashed out all that money to him, and nothing worked in his favor. He could have gotten a public defender if this was the case. I get the RICO charge, and I even understand the conspiracy too. Too much evidence was on him to get him out of that shit, but the distribution? He didn’t have to get a guilty verdict on that.

That shit could have gone towards the other niggas in his crew.

Even the money laundering could have been thrown out the window because those are the easiest to turn into a paper trail fight.

We can argue what that nigga could have done until we’re blue in the face.

Fact of the matter is, it’s a strong chance that he wasn’t walking out of there regardless,” I finished.

“I don’t know, Law. I feel like you would have gotten him off.

Nobody not fuckin with you,” Alex hyped me.

I stuck my hand out, so that I could shake it up with my boy, and I listened to what some of my attorney’s in the room were saying, loving to hear their point of views, and what they would have done differently.

All of us were fiends for this kind of lawyer talk, so I sat in here with them for at least thirty minutes, loving the debates that I was hearing, and jumping in whenever I saw fit.

I eventually left out of the meeting room, so that I could head back to my office.

I had a few things that I needed to look over before my next client that was coming in a little over an hour.

I had a flat screen TV in my room, and I kept the TV live on the courthouse, wanting to see what else was going on.

I was sitting at my desk, looking over an email when I saw that the camera crew filming Dominic walking out. He had his head held high, still walking with that cocky ass walk, even though they just finished having a field day in court with his client.

“Attorney Dominic, talk to us a little bit about what just happened this morning in court. Do you think that the verdict was fair? Would you, and your team have done anything differently?” one of the reporters asked him.

Like he was offended with the question that was asked of him, he sucked his teeth and gave him a look like he wanted to take that mic from out of his hand and beat him with it.

“Ay man, don’t ask me nothing about if I would have done anything differently.

I did my part. I did exactly what I was supposed to do for my client, so respect me as such!

Every attorney in Miami was afraid of taking this case!

Every single last one of them! Even ya’ll favorite attorney that ya’ll like to brag on because he doesn’t lose cases was too scary to finish the case off, and that’s how I got it in the first place.

He ran from it, so I took it. Say what you want about me, but I fought tooth, and nail for my client,” he spat, and I laughed at this nigga trying to be petty.

I swear, I be in my own little world, raising my kids, spoiling the fuck out of my wife, preparing for my twins to get here, and niggas went out of their way to constantly fuck with me.

He couldn’t think that he was going to make that petty ass statement on national tv, and I wasn’t going to respond back to it.

He had to know that I was going to have to hit him up and get in his chest about that statement.

Niggas were on a spree with trying me, and it never worked out in their favor because a nigga like me was always the one to get the last laugh.

My phone started vibrating on the table, and it was Soraya calling me on Facetime.

Something told me that she was in her office, probably watching this shit too, and that’s why she was hitting me.

I answered the phone for her, propping the phone up on the table, and her beautiful face appeared on the screen.

“Sevyn, just leave it alone, please. Everything doesn’t deserve a response,” was the first thing that she said to me, and I just laughed because I knew her ass so well. I knew this was the reason she was calling me.

“Ima just respond to the nigga a little bit,” I said, and she rolled her eyes at me.

“Why you got that nigga on your screen anyways? Let me find out you miss him or something,” I fucked with her, just wanting to see her riled up.