Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Rapper NBA YoungBoy pleaded no contest to prescription fraud charges in Logan on Monday.
- He paid a $25,000 fine, avoiding incarceration, leading to prosecutors reducing his felonies to misdemeanors.
- YoungBoy faces federal gun possession charges, with a 27-month prison sentence and 60-month probation anticipated in December.
LOGAN — Louisiana rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again pleaded no contest to charges alleging he was involved in a prescription fraud ring on Monday and the judge dismissed the case after a $25,000 fine was paid.
Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, 25, who is also known as NBA YoungBoy, was arrested in April and was initially held at the Cache County Jail, but was later charged with federal crimes and moved to federal prison.
Utah's 1st District Judge Spencer Walsh said Monday he accepted the proposed plea deal sentence — dismissing the case with no incarceration or probation but just a fine — because of Gaulden's anticipated sentence in his related federal cases in the District of Utah.
He told Gaulden he seemed "like a very talented young man." Walsh said he hopes the rapper is successful at completing probation and wished him luck.
Jon Williams, Gaulden's attorney, said during Monday's hearing that he consulted with federal prosecutors for the plea deal, too, and it takes into account an anticipated sentence of 27 months in federal prison followed by 60 months of probation. He said that is a significant sentence.
"This is really a smaller cog in the bigger wheel of ultimately seeking justice," he said.
Deputy Cache County attorney Ronnie Keller said the prescription fraud case began when law enforcement detained five people who were picking up a fraudulent prescription in Gaulden's car. He said a call about the prescription from someone pretending to be Gwendolyn White, who could not provide a birth year, came from someone with a voice that was recognized by multiple pharmacists matching different first names.
He said investigators verified that the doctor named on the prescriptions, based in Provo, had not entered the prescriptions.
Keller said it was more than just the use of Gaulden's vehicle that connected him to the case — one of the prescriptions was under his name with a fraudulent birthday, and fraudulent prescription bottles were found in his possession.
He said each fraudulent prescription has three offenses: identity fraud through using a doctor's name, fraud by lying to the pharmacist about a relationship with the patient and forgery by writing a false prescription.
Gaulden ultimately pleaded no contest to two counts of identity fraud and two counts of forgery, both third-degree felonies that prosecutors reduced to class A misdemeanors following payment of the fine and six counts of pharmacy fraud, a class A misdemeanor.
In the state case, Gaulden initially faced 46 charges, but a majority of those were dismissed as part of the plea bargain, including a pattern of unlawful activity, a second-degree felony, 13 counts of identity fraud and 11 counts of forgery, third-degree felonies, plus two counts of forgery and nine counts of pharmacy fraud, class A misdemeanors.
Gaulden filed a plea statement on Sept. 6 entering guilty pleas to unlawfully transporting a firearm in two federal cases — one of which was initiated in Louisiana and transferred to Utah. During Monday's hearing, Williams said the federal court has not yet accepted the plea but he is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 19.
In that statement, he admitted to possessing firearms while filming a music video in Louisiana in 2020; and in 2024, to possessing a firearm at his home in Huntsville — both instances knowing he had committed a felony and was not allowed to possess firearms.
