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Legal Heat on Memphis Circle: Big30 and Pooh Shiesty’s Father Plead Not Guilty in Dallas Robbery Case
Big30 and Pooh Shiesty's father pleaded not guilty May 1 in a federal case stemming from a Jan. 10 Dallas studio incident that left several victims, including Gucci Mane, robbed. Both men remain jailed after bond revocations; Pooh Shiesty's lawyer withdrew April 28.
This spring’s headlines about rap and the courts have a familiar rhythm: arrests, arraignments, and a slow drip of legal filings that rearrange reputations faster than new singles hit streaming. The fallout from a Jan. 10 incident at a Dallas recording studio landed squarely in that pattern this week, when two men tied to Memphis’s scene entered pleas in federal court.
According to documents obtained by XXL, Memphis rapper Big30, born Rodney Wright Jr., and Lontrell Williams Sr., who is the father of Pooh Shiesty, pleaded not guilty on May 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Both men remain jailed after their bonds were revoked following earlier proceedings.
The pair are among nine people charged in connection with the January studio confrontation that prosecutors say involved robbery and kidnapping. Gucci Mane was one of the several victims who reported losses, and the FBI told a judge at an April 8 hearing that Gucci Mane gave a statement to investigators about the incident.
The not-guilty pleas mark the next formal step in a case that has already moved through multiple hearings, bond disputes, and shifting legal teams. The charges are federal, and if prosecutors secure convictions for every defendant on the roster, the statutes at play carry life sentences.
Elsewhere in the case, defense movement continued to ripple outward. On April 28 Bradford Cohen, who was one of Pooh Shiesty’s attorneys, announced his withdrawal on social media and in a short video explaining the change. Cohen said he would be replaced by Dallas-based lawyers Dan Cogdell and Kent Schaffer.
In the Instagram clip, Cohen said he believes there are serious problems with the prosecution’s narrative: ‘The prosecution’s case has a lot of holes and I believe the ‘FDO’ rapper can beat the rap — pun intended.’ He framed his exit as a transition to local counsel who will take the next steps in court.
Pooh Shiesty himself has been denied bond and remains in custody as the case proceeds. The larger group of nine defendants includes Pooh Shiesty, and court filings list robbery and kidnapping as the primary federal allegations tied to the Dallas studio incident.
Speaking to the wider context, this case lands amid a stretch where courthouse drama has become another axis of artists’ public lives. For Memphis artists like Big30 and Pooh Shiesty, legal battles now thread into the city’s musical narrative—sometimes overshadowing drops and collaborations that once dominated headlines.
Prosecutors have not yet taken this file to trial, and defense attorneys are laying groundwork for challenges to the evidence disclosed so far. For now the sequence is procedural: indictments, pleas, bond hearings, and the slow accumulation of filings that will shape what the jurors eventually see.
What happens next is largely administrative: pretrial motions, discovery fights, and calendar dates that could push a trial months out. Observers on both sides say the case will hinge on witness statements and any forensic tie-ins the FBI can make between the defendants and the Dallas scene that night.
As this unfolds, fans and industry figures will be parsing every update. The charges are serious, the courtroom appearances public, and the reputations involved are part of a larger story about music, money, and the law in modern hip-hop.
