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50 cent helps a old freind from the hood by buying him a lawyer (ny times)

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Trizz:
A RAP IN PRAISE OF HIS LAWYER
By: Denis Hamil (NYC's Daily News)

Same dance, different music.

In the late 1980s, Stephen Murphy made his reputation as the lawyer who walked both of his white clients in the racially charged Howard Beach and Bensonhurst trials.

These days, Murphy is representing rappers charged with trying to kill cops.

Last year in Queens, Murphy represented rapper Elaikim Johnson, who was charged with attempted homicide of five officers in the Queensbridge projects. That charge carries a life sentence, the same as murder of an ordinary citizen.

At that trial, Murphy shredded the testimony of the cops into blue confetti and won his client a full acquittal. After the verdict, Johnson hugged Murphy and said, "Murphy, you my n-----." It was a moment of pure New York irony, a black rapper using the unprintable N-word as a term of endearment for the most high-profile white Howard Beach trial lawyer.

Word spread. Soon a story about Murphy appeared in Felon Magazine, a hip-hop monthly. Murphy was invited to a huge party at the Mars 2112 hip-hop club for Nas, another famous rapper. "I was the only white guy there," Murphy says. "Most people thought I was a record producer." Murphy also was invited to various parties in the Queensbridge housing projects and a hip-hop cookout in Corona Park. "For years, it's been just too easy for cops to arrest some black kid in the projects and concoct a story," Murphy says of the dirty practice known as testilying. "The defendants usually couldn't afford good attorneys. Facing heavy time, they'd cop pleas even though they were innocent," he says. "Now some of them are making money in the rap business. Or have loyal pals like 50 Cent who don't forget where they come from. And they hire a trial lawyer like me - and I'm not cheap - and you see that these cases are put together with blatant lies."

TruthTime

In Murphy's latest case, which ended in an acquittal on Oct. 10, the notorious rapper Curtis (50 Cent) Jackson personally paid Murphy to defend a buddy named Barja Walter, 28. Walter was charged with shooting at five police officers in the Louis Armstrong housing projects in Bedford-Stuyvesant on New Year's Eve 2000. "The assistant DA was a really gifted lawyer named Tom Ridges, who was a tough cop for 13 years," says Murphy, whose record in murder trials is 35-0. "I knew I had my work cut out for me."

Murphy hired ex-cop private investigators Billy McClelland and Bruce Robertson from Sunrise Securities of Brooklyn, who videotaped the crime scene, scrutinized evidence and interviewed witnesses. Once again, Murphy found big discrepancies in the official police story. "On the stand, the cops started telling lies to cover up for lies," Murphy said. "They gave one version of the story to my client's Parole Board hearing, another version when applying for a search warrant and yet another version in court. "I told the jury in summation, 'Hey, there are a thousand versions of a lie but only one version of the truth.'"

No gun was ever found, and the jury believed the testimony of Walter's then 13-year-old brother, Faheem, who said that on the night of the alleged crime, he threw a cherry bomb near an unmarked van but didn't know police were sitting inside. The jury delivered the acquittal in an hour and 15 minutes, which included a lunch break. "I would have voted not guilty in a minute," says Barbara Cobham, an alternate juror at the eight-day trial. "Murphy's a real ball of fire. He had the police officers so confused that I almost felt sorry for them. But I didn't because they were trying to send a man away for life on testimony that Murphy proved just wasn't believable." Cobham said that at the end of the trial, all the jurors shook Murphy's hand and asked for his card. "I hope I never need that card, but if I or someone I care about ever gets in trouble, he's the first one I'm calling," Cobham said.

Barja Walter is glad he called Murphy. "I'm 28, and I was looking at the rest of my life in a cage," said Walter from Rikers Island, where he's still being held for the parole violation, but who Murphy says should be home for the holidays. "And then I read about Murphy in a magazine. My friend 50 Cent agreed to pay him. Man, Murphy's better than 'The Practice,' better than 'Law & Order,'" Walter added. "He fights like his own life is on the line. All the guys in the Rikers law library ask me for Murphy's phone number, but I tell them he's about the work, yo. The man gotta get paid for giving you back your life. I owe my life to the Lord, my loyal wife, to 50 Cent and to Stephen Murphy. He the man."



i wanna see dipset and your favorite rappers do somthing like this....  




50= Hood represenitive to the fullest

Trizz:
i smell speechless 50 cent haterz

is that you luke?

is that you jim jones?


 8)

Darksider:
good for this guy

Trizz:
you smell that? *sniff sniff* i smell on the low hating

  ;D

Smooth:
That's good to go. Glad to see 50's givin back to the hood... I bet most rappers wouldn't do that...

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