(AllHipHop News) Rapper DMX appeared in a Phoenix, Arizona courtroom today (March 16) to face charges that he violated his probation last week, by using cocaine.
DMX, 39, was sentenced to six months in prison for failing a drug test last June according to prosecutor. He was also ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation. The troubled rapper could be released in as little as six months, since he’s already been accepted by Dr. Drew Pinsky’s Pasadena Recovery Center, although he’s not expected to be featured on the show. DMX has been held without bond in the 4th Avenue jail since last Tuesday (March 9), after he was arrested by probate officers for regularly using the drug over the past nine months.
Simmons had been isolated from other inmates since being incarcerated in a Phoenix jail overseen by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who bills himself the toughest sheriff in America.
Arpaio called for DMX to serve time in prison, because the rapper has been arrested five times in Arizona, on charges ranging from drug possession and identity theft to animal cruelty.
“Rappers seem to go to jail quite frequently,” Arpaio stated. “Why is he treated different, because he’s DMX and made some movies? If he stays in the jail long enough I’ll decide whether or not to put him in the drug prevention education program.”
The rapper spent 90 days in Arpaio’s Phoenix based “Tent City” prison, where inmates are forced to wear pink-stripped prison outfits.
Arpaio himself is under intense scrutiny and faces at least a dozen civil lawsuits for abusing his power against citizens, Hispanics and even Superior Court judges in the state.
