Bleu Davinci As told to Julia Beverly
Just days after BMF Entertainment president artist Bleu Davinci was sentenced to five years and four months in prison for his role in the drug trafficking arm of BMF, he reached out to OZONE to tell his story. So do you feel that your sentencing was fair? Yeah. Actually, in the Feds they [base the sentencing on] a guideline grid. They held me responsible for 150 or more kilos. My grid was set at 260 months originally, but I was eligible for a “safety valve” because I don’t have an adult criminal history. That allows the judge to depart from the Federal sentencing guidelines, so that’s how my time started going down. I had a mandatory minimum of 10 years. Conspiracy carries a mandatory minimum of 10 to life, but since I had no criminal history as an adult, it allowed the judge and probation office to recommend less. A probation officer came out and interviewed me; they wanted to know how many kids I have, what grade I finished in school, how many jobs I’ve had, stuff like that. They recommended 84 months, which is seven years. My grid came back to 70 months after they did the reduction, and the judge departed from that by six months and sentenced me to 64 months. The minor role adjustment and the safety valve dropped me down from level 38 on the Federal sentencing grid to level 32. When I signed the acceptance responsibility as part of my plea bargain, it dropped me down another 3 levels to 29. That’s how they came up with my sentence. They do it by the rules in the Feds; it ain’t like the state. When you get locked up in the state you can get a good lawyer to make stuff go away or knock a big sentence all the way down to a small sentence. Here in the federal courts, they run it all by a grid, and without a safety valve recommendation they can’t depart from the federal guidelines. A lot of [other BMF affiliates] had a criminal history, so the judge wasn’t able to go under the mandatory 12 // OZONE MAG
minimum. That’s why a lot of people don’t understand how certain people got certain [sentences]. When we interviewed you previously, you were very emphatic that you were only involved in the music aspect of BMF and not the criminal aspect. Well, now everything’s out [in the open]. Of course being interviewed prior to being charged with a crime, nobody’s going to tell you what they’ve done wrong. But when 12, 13 people are [testifying], you know, of course I’m going to plead guilty. But I didn’t have a major role in the whole scheme of things. I still had a minor role, and they gave me exactly what they saw fit. I had a minor role on the street level of BMF. But as far as BMF Entertainment, I’m the president of the company. You expressed some negative feelings towards Jeezy in our last interview. How did that turn out? Me and Jeezy have been through our personal ups and downs in the past, but he never stopped claiming [BMF]. We’ve had a chance to talk since then, and we got our situation together. I got much love for Jeezy. He’s doing his thing. Every man has to make decisions for himself. It’s not like he ever disowned my crew or had anything bad to say about BMF. He always keeps the name going, so I’m definitely in his corner of support at this time. The rest of this interview is featured in OZONE’s December issue.