The Baltimore rapper known as YGG Tay was sentenced Tuesday afternoon to a mandatory federal prison term of 15 years.
Davante Harrison, 27, was convicted by a jury earlier this year on drug and gun charges, which carried mandatory minimum sentences totaling 15 years. At sentencing before U.S. District Court Judge Paul Grimm, Harrison wore an orange jumpsuit and the courtroom gallery was empty.
While he was incarcerated awaiting trial, his mother died from COVID-19, his defense attorneys said.
Harrison had been in the crosshairs of investigators for years, with federal prosecutors previously making statements alleging Harrison was involved in violence. Harrison spoke out publicly to deny the claims, and no such allegations were raised at his trial or at Tuesday’s sentencing.
“There has been a lot of rumor and innuendo raised by the government,” said defense attorney Natalie Finegar, adding that ultimately “the evidence only covered a very narrow role of a relatively small operation in Baltimore City.”
Prosecutors contended at trial that Harrison was a calculated high-level dealer who was careful about his movements, and slipped up in November 2019 when agents went to serve a search warrant on him and found drugs and a Glock handgun with an extended magazine.
“Unfortunately, even after being the victim of a shooting, he took no pause in furthering the drug trade in and around Baltimore,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum.
His defense attorneys told jurors that while he was caught with a gun and drugs, there was no evidence that he was part of a distribution conspiracy.
“The evidence showed he was a purchaser of narcotics, not a distributor,” said his other attorney, John Cox, after the verdict.
Agents found 3.2 grams of mixed heroin and fentanyl and 8 grams of fentanyl in the center console of his vehicle — more than a personal use amount, prosecutors said at trial.
Finegar and Cox said Harrison has struggled with substance abuse, with his “young adult-life … plagued by his significant addiction to opioids such as oxycodone, codeine and heroin.”
“His phone contains copious outgoing messages to various contacts for Percocet, often gathering a limited supply from multiple sources then repeating the process the following day,” they wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
