Rapper Trick Daddy arrested in Florida on cocaine, gun charges

[April 05, 2014]  MIAMI (Reuters) — Police arrested rapper Trick Daddy and charged him with cocaine and gun possession after a stakeout at his south Florida home on suspicion he was running a an indoor marijuana farm, according to a police affidavit.

A report by the Broward Sheriff's Office said the rapper, whose real name is Maurice Young, was arrested on Thursday. He was also charged with driving with a suspended license.

Young was released on a $6,100 bond on Friday. If convicted, he faces at least three years in prison under Florida's mandatory minimum sentencing law.

According to the affidavit, police began watching Young's home in a Fort Lauderdale suburb on Thursday with a warrant allowing a drug-sniffing dog to smell the outside of the house.

He was pulled over around 10 a.m. as he was leaving the house for driving with a suspended license.

"He admitted that he just had powder cocaine in the residence and maybe marijuana roaches, but no grow house," according to the affidavit.

Police searched Young's home and found a gram of cocaine in his bedroom along with a 9mm handgun, and a box of ammunition, but no marijuana plants.

Young reached stardom in the mid-1990s and early 2000s with hit songs like "I'm a Thug" and "Shut Up."

He served two and a half years in prison after a 1991 conviction on charges of cocaine possession and carrying a concealed firearm.

He was arrested again in 2003 on an assault charge after threatening to kill a man following a street basketball game.

(Reporting by Zachary Fagenson; editing by Kevin Gray and Mohammad Zargham)

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