Instagram influencer, Ramon Abbas, popularly known as ‘Hushpuppi’, has been denied bail and told by a judge on Monday in Chicago that he will remain in detention until his trial later this year over money laundering allegations, according to the Forbes.
Hushpuppi’s bail application failed in spite of his lawyer, Gal Pissetzky, insisting that his job as an Instagram celebrity paid for the $10,000 monthly rent on his luxury Dubai flat.
Appearing at a detention hearing, a court in the Northern District of Illinois ruled that Abbas will be transported to Los Angeles by the U.S. Marshals Service.
His lawyer applied for him to leave jail with an electronic tag and live with his girlfriend’s uncle in Homewood, Illinois, but US prosecutors opposed the bail application.
US prosecutors said that he poses a ‘flight risk’ and could commit a crime with just a smartphone and an internet connection.
Throughout the hearing, Hushpuppi’s lawyer denied that his client was a ‘flight risk’ or a danger to the community, repeatedly rejecting the allegations made against his client by the FBI’s affidavit posted earlier this month.
‘Loved and respected’
Pissetzky told the court that his client posed no ‘flight risk’ because of the damage it would do to his credibility online.
“He is loved and respected.
“He is a celebrity.
“He would not want to ruin his credibility and status rather than stay here and face these allegations.”
Adding support to the claim that Abbas pays for his lifestyle through promoting designer products on social media, Pissetzky argued: “Mr Abbas is an Instagram personality.
“A social media personality.
“Of course, he poses with high price items because that’s what he gets paid to do.
“That’s what he has built from growing up very poor in Nigeria.
“He was able to develop himself into this very well-known personality with millions of followers on Instagram.
“He is an influencer — that is what my kids would call him — an influencer.
“And people seeing him with these Louis Vuitton bags or clothes, or Gucci bags and clothes, or these fancy cars and they go and want it.
“They wanna buy it.
“That’s a job today.
“As much as it’s hard to imagine — that’s a full-time job.”
However, Judge Jeffrey Gilbert denied Hushpuppi bail on grounds of him being a flight risk.
Gilbert also ordered that Hushpuppi be remanded in custody until he is taken to a court in California.
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