A judge is granting Pooh Shiesty's request to end his 23-hour solitary confinement.
According to a court record reviewed by Complex, both the prosecution and defense consented to the relief sought by the 27-year-old rapper (whose real name is Lontrell Denell Williams Jr.) on Tuesday (Nov. 10).
Shiesty’s attorney Kent Schaffer tells Complex that the decision is “crucial.”
“Judge [David] Godbey started the hearing by expressing his concern regarding the confinement and instructed the government to work with us to find a sensible solution. It looks like we have reached an agreement and Lontrell will hopefully be in a new facility within a few days,” Schaffer told Complex via email.
He continued, “Lontrell has been locked in a small cell 23 hours per day since July 1 and his only contact with the outside world is through an iPad. The lights are left on in his cell all day and night and he is unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. For whatever reason, the warden of this facility has had it in for him since the day he arrived and so it was important to get him moved to a place that will treat him humanely.”
Shiesty remains detained at Rolling Plains Regional Jail in Haskell, Texas, while anticipating a February 2027 trial concerning accusations of kidnapping and armed robbery targeting Gucci Mane.
Last month, Shiesty’s legal counsel filed an emergency motion, claiming that the Texas jail cut his monthly visitation hours from four to two and that he was being confined to his cell for 23 hours per day. The rapper told his attorneys that these conditions were affecting his mental health by causing him difficulty with sleeping and increasing his anxiety.
Federal prosecutors pushed back on the request, saying that the restrictions were necessary to protect Shiesty and maintain order at the jail. They also pointed to the rapper’s access to a tablet—which allows him to make video calls, send emails, play games, and stream content. A filing at the time claimed Shiesty had logged 231 video calls totaling more than 45 hours and has access to thousands of emails.
Schaeffer contested their framing, saying Shiesty is being held in indefinite solitary confinement without any “written classification,” disciplinary infraction involving violence, or administrative hearing and that his hours of tablet use reflects a man “with nothing else to do and no one to talk to.”
“The government’s central argument is that Mr. Williams cannot be suffering inhumane conditions because he can use a tablet to watch Netflix, play games, send electronic messages, and make video calls,” Schaeffer wrote in a legal reply reviewed by Complex. “But the motion does not seek more entertainment. It challenges near-total isolation from other people that has not been justified. Screen time does not substitute for human contact, and the government cites no case holding otherwise.”
Schaeffer continued, “Mr. Williams is not asking the Court to run the jail. He asks only that a presumptively innocent man not be held in near-total isolation indefinitely on the strength of an unsworn, changing explanation that, even taken at face value, describes no violence, no threat, and no misconduct of his own at [Rolling Plains Regional Jail].”
While Shiesty requested to be moved to a facility closer to Dallas to make it easier for family and friends to visit him, a final decision on where he would be relocated was not determined during Tuesday’s hearing.
Shiesty’s trial is scheduled to begin in February 2027.
