'Something to hide' - Rapper Jose Bodega takes the 5th in Yella Beezy trial — LEGAL REACTION

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: okay well our witness has pleaded the fifth yeah we saw that and um i'll just say this look the [00:00:11] Speaker 2: constitution it does protect his right to remain silent but it doesn't make it invisible right so if the truth is on your side then there's nothing to hide and him pleading the fifth it shows he has something to hide and it and it was a really bad look for him but you know out of all the questions we heard you know what we didn't hear tanya no we didn't hear marquis conway's name again we didn't hear his name even in the questioning to this witness so uh while it did something to uh jose bodega the questioning him taking the fifth may make him look uh like something he may have something to hide it didn't really again it didn't attack anything towards [00:00:52] Speaker 1: marquis conway well and and i think that's been one of the problems they've had in this case is [00:00:58] Speaker 2: that people just aren't talking yeah i mean in the state again i mean uh you know it seems like we've been knocking on them all day but if witnesses are unwilling to cooperate with them in this prosecution that's they can't again they can't force jose bodega to testify against uh yellow beasy they can't do that so they're doing with whatever evidence they have they're working with whatever they have so they tried to get him to speak they thought maybe he might be cooperative as we saw he's not cooperating so that's another uh i guess this is another knock on the prosecution [00:01:32] Speaker 1: though yeah because it sounds it seems like um theodore thomas aka jose bodega was supposed to be [00:01:39] Speaker 2: their big witness for the day it's what it seems like towards the end of the day and if he had spoke if he had uh given some testimony that could have tied uh yellow beasy to this murder it would have obviously been a bombshell it would have helped their case uh it would have put something in the jurors mind as they go home for the day but again we heard nothing about marquise conway and again we [00:02:01] Speaker 1: have another uh non-cooperating witness from the state well there were there were a couple one question they asked about a conversation between jerry johnson and marquise conway he took the fifth to that and he also took the fifth to his whereabouts on november 10th and 11th i guess he said it sounded like he was in california with with conway and he also took the fifth to that but he took the fifth i mean it sounds to me like if they had asked him what he had for breakfast this morning he would have [00:02:27] Speaker 2: taken the fifth and he had his lawyer there and he was going to make sure that uh he didn't say much [00:02:32] Speaker 1: he didn't want to say anything and as is as is his right it is his right and james now the attorney he had with him james lee bright is a very well known oh we see him right there he's talking with the yellow beasy's attorneys right there yeah i mean james lee bright is a very very well known very good um uh defense attorney here in the dallas area and i mean you all of these guys all these these rappers they've all got really good counsel and we don't know i mean maybe yellow [00:03:02] Speaker 2: bc's paying for all these attorneys maybe we don't know who's uh finding i'm not gonna put that into the world because i have no idea but yeah but um yeah they all came with great attorneys all very well respected attorneys and uh yeah i i it seemed that the defense came very prepared on all angles [00:03:19] Speaker 1: now explain to folks okay so he clearly has given a statement to the grand jury um sounds like he's probably given statements that were not in front of the grand jury but in front of the grand jury and then and then toby shook referenced a recantation and i don't know what that means exactly can any of that [00:03:37] Speaker 2: come in now that he's invoked no nothing's coming in i don't believe any of that will come in that's [00:03:44] Speaker 1: people want to know um oh they're asking what am i watching folks i'm just reading the comments i try as as much as possible to read your comments so that if you have questions um we can we can answer them um but yeah i don't know but why would you give a statement to the grand jury and then turn around and take the fifth what do you think it would have led to that well i i from i believe from what we [00:04:10] Speaker 2: heard uh he spoke to the green jury and then later on he went with his attorney and recanted his statements from the grand jury and now he's pleading the fifth so uh why why that happened in that order uh i i can't speculate we can't but uh only person that knows why he's doing that is uh jose bodega [00:04:28] Speaker 1: himself and his attorney yeah well let me let me look in here i was gonna google him real quick um yeah it's it's interesting to me that because this is this has got to be for the the defense [00:04:41] Speaker 2: for the prosecution a disappointment right oh absolutely i'm sure the prosecution is uh [00:04:47] Speaker 1: not happy with how this went oh here we go so i was look i was looking him up so um jose bodega pleaded had pled guilty to a drug conspiracy charge in a separate federal correct case and a separate federal case and had agreed to plead with prosecutors in the capital murder trial of rapper yellow beezy so and he is a childhood friend of yellow beezy's okay so what does this do to his um and i'd have to try to go maybe i can pull up his um his court his case file on federal courts what does this do to his [00:05:25] Speaker 2: plea does what does it affect it it depends i mean if the plea deal he made uh directly deals with this was contingent upon him testifying in favor of the prosecution then that could potentially um you know avoid that deal but i don't know what uh deal was made in regards to that well i'm actually trying to pull it and i believe jose bodega this was the witness you know on social media there are some talks that they had a smoking gun witness i believe jose bodega was that witness uh from my understanding and if that is the case then um that's going to be a very uh big blow to the prosecution [00:05:58] Speaker 1: does and and you think that they would have likely been planning for this to be the rest of the day [00:06:04] Speaker 2: and now it's not well i mean there's still some time left we still have about another hour or two before the day and so i'm i i think the prosecution you know i i would i would hope that they would try to rebound off this and end on a uh on a better note than this you would hope [00:06:21] Speaker 1: because so far i mean and the thing is is we heard that but the jury didn't they have no idea this just [00:06:27] Speaker 2: happened yeah you know but uh either way if the jury heard it i don't think uh it wouldn't have helped the state's case because no evidence no information came out that helped them build those building [00:06:40] Speaker 1: blocks to get that conviction right yeah it's just sorry i'm actually trying to like go find i'm actually i'm trying to find his um his plea deal in the court system in the federal in the federal court system looking on there's a a system called pacer which is where you can look up um stuff and i'm trying to okay here's this plea agreement but normally plea agreements don't reference like going and testifying in a [00:07:12] Speaker 2: in another oh no i don't think that probably that wouldn't be publicly available well i mean i mean [00:07:19] Speaker 1: i see the plea agreement i'm looking at on the federal court system so he pled guilty to count one conspiracy with intent to possess a controlled substance the maximum penalties was 20 years but i'm looking to see if it referenced this this case and it i don't think it does normally it yeah it wouldn't uh reference something like that um yeah so he's he's for whatever reason yeah decided he's not gonna i mean i guess maybe he could have gotten some downward departure if he had testified in this case downward departure is a way in the federal court system where you can get your sentence reduced i reduced i don't know if you can do that after sentencing or not but again we don't know uh what [00:08:08] Speaker 2: the deal was what what what his testimony was usually how these work uh when you meet with your with the prosecutors with your attorney uh there's certain testimony you're going to give that you know you say this is what happened and uh if you change that at the last minute maybe this is a scenario that's what happened here then the deal would be void so we don't know the details of it but we do know that i'll say this tanya jose bodega was a was a state witness the prosecution called him for a reason prosecutors call witnesses that are going to help their case that help move the chain up bring evidence in the fact that he was called he was asked you know a dozen plus questions by tommy adams a great prosecutor nothing was answered everything was i plead the fifth uh that says a lot that says a lot for [00:08:58] Speaker 1: their case um right and so i think that they wouldn't go through this exercise right if they [00:09:07] Speaker 2: thought he was going to invoke they wouldn't subpoena a witness have him come to court and just have him go through this whole you know plead the fifth song and dance uh they brought him for a reason there there's some evidence there's some testimony they wanted to get out to help their case to help progress [00:09:23] Speaker 1: their case and clearly they that did not happen um i'm sorry i'm sure i'm still um checking here through my email yeah i yeah so this is just a just a wow i it's got to feel you know you're you're hoping that you can offer the jury if you're the prosecutors you're you're thinking you want to you want to give the jury something right because we're at the end of day close to the end of day three and here we are 246 and that's not happening no because you would think that if this guy had taken the stand he would have been on the stand for the remainder of the afternoon and presumably maybe into [00:10:04] Speaker 2: the morning yeah potentially the the questioning that was asked um to jose bodega i mean it went to the heart of the issue to asking where marquise conway was on the day of the murder they're asking about the relationships between people that information could have gone hours and i think if he had been a cooperating witness with the state then i think the defense i think they would have kept him on cross-examination for for as long as possible right because they don't want that information to come in and just be out there in the open they don't want to uh fight fight that testimony as much as they could but the fact that he pled the fifth uh and we would have had fireworks we would have [00:10:46] Speaker 1: fireworks but the fact that and then presumably if they had any video of his statements we might have heard that well all the things we you know we heard that jose bodega he gave there's 135 pages of grand [00:10:57] Speaker 2: jury testimony that's a lot of pages and so he did a lot of talking a lot of talking so if he had spoke today if if he says something that didn't match up with his grand jury testimony you know that he could be impeached by that could come in a lot of things could have happened from both sides prosecution and defense because he didn't say anything i mean that that i think that might have been that might have been what this day was going to be last two hours would have been jose bodega but now uh you know we [00:11:25] Speaker 1: don't have that i know you think they're regrouping right now i well there's a break and would they have i mean wouldn't they have checked in with him just before the trial and said hey dude are you still [00:11:37] Speaker 2: talking well you know a lot of times uh witnesses in these scenarios witnesses that are cooperating they do change their mind game time right because uh again jose bodega he's not limited he's allowed to speak to his lawyer his lawyer is allowed to negotiate so he may have been working in deciding what's in his best interest does he want to testify does he not want to testify and obviously he made a decision that he did not want to testify in this case um and you you wonder how much of that gets [00:12:09] Speaker 1: back to the whole you know not wanting to be you know you know in accused of being a snitch yeah [00:12:16] Speaker 2: nobody wants to do that i think we do know that jose bodega marquis conway their childhood friends it's not just about being a snitch it's about loyalty to your friends and i think uh that that is something that we see in a lot of these trials uh people are loyal to their friends they're loyal to their [00:12:33] Speaker 1: associates and uh okay i have an answer about his federal case so he got into thank you cody skipper attorney i wasn't completely understanding all the all the court records on this one um he got into a this program and his indictment was dismissed in may of 2026 and the government it was a program called sentencing to equip people for success program or steps so i'm looking at so i don't know if that could have played a role i don't know or maybe he just decided he didn't want to be accused of being a snitch or maybe he just decided that whatever he was about to say was going to cause him a different set of problems we don't know because obviously he's not [00:13:31] Speaker 2: telling us well i'll say if the state knew he was just going to plead the fifth they'd have no reason to call him right i think they called him because they thought he would cooperate he would provide them some benefit uh in getting a conviction right that's why they're you call witnesses to move your case forward to build the puzzles to get enough evidence for a conviction so uh i don't know i i i would love to be a fly on the wall and see what the prosecutors are thinking right now um well they [00:14:01] Speaker 1: can't be happy no absolutely not no you don't you don't prepare for this witness and have everything that you need ready to go and then you're you're not happy about that no and again uh you know these [00:14:13] Speaker 2: are you know uh marissa hatchett she's a co-counsel she's a great prosecutor i know her tommy adam's a great prosecutor these are very talented lawyers so it's not about uh them personally it's just the evidence what they're dealt with is is is not coming in their favor right now does he open [00:14:29] Speaker 1: himself to the well of course we don't know what he said in his grand jury testimony um does he open [00:14:36] Speaker 2: himself up to a charge essentially based off just saying plead the fifth absolutely not i mean that is when you plead the fifth you're protecting yourself from having charges brought on you you have that constitutional right now if he said something in grand jury uh previously and we don't know what he said anything there potentially could be but the fact that he just pleaded the fifth um no he's protected [00:14:59] Speaker 1: under the constitution yeah well that's why i would you know like for somebody to send me the grand [00:15:06] Speaker 2: jury testimony i'd like to read it you can i mean maybe ask the prosecutors i don't know it's usually grand jury testimony secret you know that works come on that was a joke yeah i was gonna say yeah [00:15:15] Speaker 1: i don't think tommy adams is going to deliver it to my inbox um yeah so okay we're now just you'll see in a second on y'all's feed we're just starting to see there's the judges we're starting to see movement in that courtroom i'm i'm i'm making a guess here that part of what's happened happening is that the everybody had to regroup after bodega after bodega took the fifth um boy and i can tell you right now from from from reading the comments right now people are increasingly convinced that yellow [00:15:48] Speaker 2: beasy is going to walk free i mean i don't know i was saying it the week before trial i thought he was going to walk and i and after you know three days in i believe i'm even more convinced that he'll walk i think this was a uphill battle for the state and again it's nothing against these uh prosecutors they're very talented lawyers the evidence is just not there and again you've seen it with little dirk you've seen it with a young thug these cases are are very difficult to get convictions right right these you know federal convictions are at a 99.9 conviction rate and and they can't these talented federal prosecutors federal prosecutors i'm sorry cannot get convictions so they're these murder for hire cases are very difficult if you can't show you know just slam dunk the payment well not even that i think the agreement for the payment the one thing you need in these cases is you need cooperating witnesses and a lot of times these are associates they're friends they're they have loyalty right and so no one's snitching on each other and because of that it's a it's increasingly [00:16:54] Speaker 1: difficult to get these convictions somebody's asking can they play the grand jury video they don't video grand jury do they they don't have there's no video there's no video but even then i don't they can't use the transcript because you have no way to it's hearsay it's hearsay yeah because you have no you have no way for the defense to question absolutely bodega about his testimony so no it's not coming in nothing's coming him taking the fifth um closes the door on that and and that since that was outside the presence of the jury they're not going to know about it absolutely unless they violate the rules which i would not advise them to do because they i and i don't know how my sense of it from jurors is that they do really try to follow the rules [00:17:37] Speaker 2: jurors do i mean in my experience jurors really want to follow the rules they want to follow the law and they want to do whatever they can to make sure everything's in line [00:17:46] Speaker 1: yeah so i don't know i'm kind of ready for them to get back underway here because today has been this was the most exciting thing we had all day though that a whole lot of them taking the fifth [00:17:56] Speaker 2: that that four minutes was the most exciting i was just like and i was writing down some of the [00:18:00] Speaker 1: questions that they were doing the fifth on i mean at first they asked him if he remembered a meeting in february uh with with various people from the state and he said i don't recall i was like wow okay we're we're not starting off well yeah exactly recall the meeting and you know he was asked about if he remembered giving information to the federal government about various individuals i'm going to plead the fifth to that he was asked about um i can't really read my handwriting here he was asked about something with trap boy oh about the feud with trap boy freddy and melvin noble you pled the fifth on that pled the fifth on that he was asked if he about the assault on roy lee pate that that that he allegedly was involved or was involved in he took the fifth on that he was asked about this conversation between jerry johnson and marquise conway fifth he was asked about um something about the underwear um the fifth um he was asked about his if he would about his whereabouts on the 10th and 11th in california with marquise conway they took the fifth and that was when the judge said uh yeah it looks like he's gonna plead uh yeah the fifth on all this what would the state like to do and um and then that's when tommy adams asked basically is that your intent to um take the fifth on you know everything you testified before the grand jury and he said yes and then they passed the witness and then toby asked him a question about the recantation to detective barnes and that was he took the fifth of that and that was it and then we then we took this break where everybody's going okay um how much of a blow do you think this is to the state's case [00:19:52] Speaker 2: um you know i don't know what other witnesses they have lined up but i can say at least right now being in day three towards the end of day three i think it's a significant blow i mean i think if you from a jurist perspective what have they done to move the needle what are they done evidence-wise to show that marquise conway did a murder for hire right they're they've shown absolutely and when i say no evidence i can i'm saying no evidence i mean you haven't heard his name the jurors have not heard his name in three days so what do you think they're thinking they're thinking they're thinking [00:20:25] Speaker 1: they're thinking what i'm thinking why why are we here again i i i keep saying saying you know thinking where's the beef and um let's see that now that is me showing my age because the where the where's the [00:20:39] Speaker 2: beef commercial dates that i'm all too because i remember that as well it dates to 1984 but i suspect [00:20:45] Speaker 1: these uh folks that the millennials may not know about that but i am i am i'm gen x so i'm very familiar with it