Yo Gotti files lawsuit on behalf of mistreated Mississippi prisoners
He’s teamed up with Roc Nation.
Yo Gotti has followed-up on his plan to help nearly 30 Mississippi state inmates who are reportedly living in deplorable and unsafe prison conditions.
According to TMZ, the rapper enlisted Roc Nation’s philanthropic Team Roc and attorney Alex Spiro to represent the prisoners, after a spike in fatal violence at several Mississippi prisons.
Gotti and Team Roc sent Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant a letter on Jan. 9, warning him that if the state didn’t make the necessary changes to its prison system, they would retaliate with a lawsuit.
The letter claimed that inmates are “forced to live in squalor, with rats that crawl over them as they sleep on the floor, having been denied even a mattress for a cot.” Gotti added that the state’s prison conditions are “absolutely inhumane and unconstitutional.”
The suit, which was filed on Tuesday (Jan. 14), calls out Parchman Farm prison, the state’s only max-security prison for men, where three inmates have already been stabbed to death this year. The suit also claims that the Mississippi prison system is “chronically understaffed” and underfunded, with Parchman not even having enough mattresses for prisoners. The state’s prison system funding is reportedly reduced by tens of millions each year.
Furthermore, the suit complains of cells that are allegedly covered in black mold and have raw sewage spilling onto the floors. According to the suit, Parchman also has a serious water issue, with inmate drinking water repeatedly failing to meet federal safety standards. Gotti asserts that the prisoners are subject to health risks from the unsanitary surroundings and violence risks, due to the understaffed prison.
The suit seeks damages for the inmates and demands an order forcing Mississippi’s Department of Corrections to lay out a plan that deals with the described issues, especially increasing the number of staff and cleaning up the raw sewage.
“The lives of countless individuals in Mississippi prisons are at stake,” Gotti told TMZ. “We will not stop until this is fixed.”