Tekashi 6ix9ine has started a three‑month federal prison sentence after a judge ruled he repeatedly violated the terms of his supervised release in his New York gang case. The rapper, born Daniel Hernandez, admitted to several breaches in 2025, including using cocaine and MDMA and getting into a physical altercation with a man at a Florida mall while he was still on supervised release from his 2018 racketeering conviction. In December, the judge sentenced him to three months behind bars, saying Hernandez had shown a pattern of treating court‑ordered rules as though they did not apply to him.
The new term marks his second return to prison in just over a year for release violations, following a 45‑day sentence handed down in late 2024 for earlier drug‑test and travel breaches. Prosecutors had asked for between three and nine months this time, arguing that the latest drug possession and assault incidents proved that prior leniency had not changed his behaviour. Hernandez’s lawyers pushed for home confinement instead, calling the drug quantities “very small” and insisting the mall fight did not result in serious injuries, but the judge rejected that request.
Hernandez was allowed to remain free through the holidays and ordered to report voluntarily to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on 6 January 2026, where he arrived accompanied by streamer Adin Ross as cameras rolled. The three‑month sentence adds another chapter to a long legal history that includes his cooperation against members of the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, an early release from his original racketeering term in 2020, and separate cases in the Dominican Republic and Florida in recent years.More detail on the sentence and the violations is available in this Rolling Stone report on Tekashi 6ix9ine’s three‑month jail term.
