Bobby Shmurda’s Parole Hearing Set for Mid-August

Bobby Shmurda got some good birthday news.

The Brooklyn rapper, born Ackquille Pollard, turned 26 on Tuesday, and his return home from jail has been one of the most highly-anticipated events in hip-hop. Now we have an idea of when it might happen. Complex has learned that the rapper’s parole hearing will occur the week of August 17 (despite widespread rumors of it occurring on Tuesday, August 4), and there’s at least a chance that he will be released not long afterwards.

It has long been known that Shmurda’s earliest parole eligibility date is December 11, 2020. But the rapper, like many New York State inmates, has a parole hearing four months in advance of that date. There is a possibility that he could be released following that hearing, if the New York State Board of Parole allows it.

“Mr. Pollard is currently scheduled to appear before the Board of Parole the week of August 17, 2020,” a Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) official told Complex. “The Board of Parole has two weeks from the date of the interview with the incarcerated individual to render a decision.”

If the parole hearing does not go well, the absolute latest Shmurda could possibly be released is December, 2021. The rapper pleaded guilty in September 2016 to conspiracy and weapons possession, after a series of arrests in 2014. Following an incident that June, he was arrested in December, 2014, along with eleven other people as part of a two-year investigation by the NYPD’s Brooklyn South Violence Reduction Task Force and the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Gang Unit.