FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – South Florida rapper Dieuson Octave, otherwise known as Kodak Black, was scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for violating the terms of his house arrest, but a Broward County judge decided to give the rapper a second chance.
"If you can find it in the kindness of your heart, your honor, I am asking you to give me a chance to prove my worth to the court, to be the person my community expects me to be," Octave told the judge.
The judge ordered that Octave, 19, must complete an anger management/life skills course. If he completes the course successfully, his sentence will be commuted from 365 days to 180 days, with credit for time served. That means he could be back to making hits within weeks.
"We know that we won't let him down this time because Dieuson Octave, not Kodak Black, means so much more to us than him being a celebrity," the rapper's assistant, Vanessa Antoine, said.
"His extraordinary creativity and almost overnight success could lead us all to forget that he is still a teenager facing temptations that most adults would find difficult to manage," Michael Kushner, of Atlantic Records, said.
Octave was found guilty of violating the terms of his probation on April 26 for going to a strip club, attending a boxing match and disrupting an anger management class.
A bartender at a Miami strip club claimed that the rapper attacked her earlier this year inside Club Climax.
The club's manager testified for the defense and said not only was bartender Jennifer Cunningham drunk, but she was the aggressor.
Octave was found guilty on multiple counts of willfully and substantially violating his house arrest.