Kodak Black Indicted For Lying to Buy Firearms

Two days after being arrested on federal and state firearms charges on Saturday (May 11), Kodak Black has officially been indicted.

Speaking to XXL, the rapper's criminal attorney, Bradford Cohen, confirmed that the 21-year-old had been charged with for two counts of making a false statement on governmental paperwork. The form he speaks of is the Firearms Transaction Record (Form 4473), which is the paperwork that must be filled out in order to purchase a registered firearm.

The paperwork in question includes a section that asks if the person filling it is under indictment for a felony. The paperwork was checked off with a "no," even though Kodak was previously indicted for criminal sexual conduct for a 2016 case in South Carolina. That's what led to his arrest.

Cohen says legal jargon can make such paperwork like the Firearms Transaction Record confusing.

"When you throw around legal terms like indictment, information, or anything like that where someone's not an attorney, [the federal government is] making the assumption that you know what that means," Cohen says without indicating whether or not Kodak actually filled out the paperwork.

"Down here, they file in information," continues Cohen. "Like in state court, they file information. Generally, they don't indict unless it's a capital crime. So every state has different terminology."

According to the Miami Herald, federal prosecutors say Kodak lied about whether he was under indictment while buying or attempting to buy weapons from Hialeah, Fla.'s Lou’s Police Distributors gun store two separate times in January and March. While the Herald says Kodak isn't allowed to own a weapon in Florida because he's a convicted felon, Cohen says that rule doesn't apply to the rapper because the rapper technically isn't a convicted felon.

"Kodak's not a convicted felon, he's only had withholds of adjudications," says Cohen, referring to a legal term that describes the process of sanctions being handed down by a court rather than an actual conviction. "So [Kodak is] still eligible to buy a firearm.

Kodak's next court appearance will be for his bail hearing at 10 a.m. this Wednesday (May 15).