A Rapper's Long Fight For Justice

ON JAN. 24, 2007, 19-YEAR-OLD ROBERT RIHMEEK Williams was arrested on his South Philly doorstep.

- Judy Berman

He doesn’t recall everything that happened next because, he says, police beat him so severely that he kept losing consciousness. Facing 19 drug, firearms and assault charges— including the allegation that he’d pointed a gun at a cop—he opted for a nonjury trial for financial reasons, was convicted on seven counts despite a lack of evidence and received a two-year prison sentence. But it’s the eight years of probation supervised by Genece Brinkley, a tough judge who seems to have obsessed over this case, that have consigned Williams to over a decade of legal turmoil, including more time behind bars.