Tekashi 6ix9ine has been transferred from a federal jail in Brooklyn to a new facility for “security reasons.”
6ix9ine, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, was removed from the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park where he was being housed in general population following his arrest on Sunday on racketeering and firearms charges.
6ix9ine’s lawyer, Lance Lazzaro, confirmed to E! News Thursday that his client has been transferred to a new facility for “security reasons.”
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Lazzaro also told the publication that the 22-year-old rapper had been “receiving threats from other inmates.”
TMZ first reported that the Stoopid rapper had “specifically asked to be in a unit away from the Crips and the Bloods.”
According to Lazzaro, 6ix9ine was moved late Wednesday night. He added that the exact facility he was transferred to was not immediately known.
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6ix9ine is among five people indicted this week on charges that he directed or participated in violent acts as part of a deadly gang known as the 9 Trey Bloods.
The indictment alleges that the violent episodes involving 6ix9ine included the July shooting of a bystander in Brooklyn and the gunpoint robbery of one of the gang’s rivals last spring.
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6ix9ine was held without bail after an initial appearance before a Manhattan federal magistrate Monday.
On Wednesday, Lazzaro said in a statement that his client was “completely innocent of all charges.”
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“An entertainer who portrays a ‘gangster image’ to promote his music does not make him a member of an enterprise,” Lazzaro said.
“Mr. Hernandez became a victim of this enterprise and later took steps by firing employees and publicly denounced this enterprise through a morning show. Threats were then made against his life which resulted in this case being brought immediately,” he added.
Two of the firearms charges that 6ix9ine is facing have a maximum sentence of life behind bars.
The Gummo rapper recently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in Brooklyn Criminal Court in connection with a May traffic stop.
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In a 2015 case in New York, 6ix9ine was sentenced to probation for his involvement in a sexually explicit video of a 13-year-old girl. At the time of the incident, 6ix9ine was 18.
The video, posted on social media, showed the girl performing a sex act on another man while 6ix9ine “stands behind the child making a thrusting motion with his pelvis and smacking her on her buttocks,” according to court documents.
He is not registered as a sex offender, but he was told that he must refrain from gang affiliation and the posting and reporting of online sexually explicit or violent images of women or children.
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Earlier this month, shots were fired on the set of 6ix9ine’s and Kanye West’s upcoming music video in Beverly Hills.
According to police, there were no injuries and the investigation is ongoing, but they could not confirm the names of anyone involved in the incident.
—With files from the Associated Press
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