Rapper Kodak Black freed from jail after drug possession charge was dismissed

Kodak Black arrives at the MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum, Aug. 27, 2017, in Inglewood, California. South Florida rapper Kodak Black was freed from jail Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024, after a federal judge sentenced him to time served for a probation violation, though a drug trafficking case from 2022 remains ongoing. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

MIAMI—South Florida rapper Kodak Black was freed from jail Wednesday, Feb. 21, after a federal judge sentenced him to time served for a probation violation, though a drug trafficking case from 2022 remains ongoing.

US District Judge Jose E. Martinez in Miami handed down the sentence nearly two weeks after a drug possession charge was dismissed in neighboring Broward County, according to court records.

Broward County Circuit Judge Barbara Duffy ruled earlier this month that prosecutors could not refute or negate the fact that the rapper, whose real name is Bill Kapri, had an oxycodone prescription filled by a pharmacy.

Plantation police arrested Kapri in December after finding him asleep at the wheel with white powder around his mouth, officials said. Although authorities said the powder initially tested positive for cocaine, a lab test later revealed it was oxycodone, for which Kapri obtained a prescription in July 2022.

The arrest was a violation of his probation from an unrelated case, which led to him being locked up in Miami for two months.

Kapri was arrested in 2022 on charges of trafficking in oxycodone and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. He was freed on bond with regular drug testing as a condition of his release. Kapri was ordered into drug rehab for 30 days early last year after missing a drug test in February and then testing positive for fentanyl several days later, according to court records. Then last June, a warrant for his arrest was issued after authorities said he did not show up for a drug test.

In January 2021, then-President Donald Trump commuted a three-year federal prison sentence the rapper had for falsifying documents used to buy weapons. Kapri had served about half his sentence.

As Kodak Black, Kapri has sold more than 30 million singles, with massive hits such as “Super Gremlin,” which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022.