Despite numerous letters arguing that Afrika Owes was just a good kid led astray, judge Edward McLaughlin has denied the 17-year-old a bail reduction for charges of conspiracy and ferrying guns to the 137th Street Crew. And for some reason Rep. Charles Rangel felt the need to stand during the hearing, which led the judge to say, "Somebody is standing who shouldn't be standing, unless you have a back problem like I do." But Rangel is one of many who support Owes; a spokeswoman told the Daily News, "He believes she should be treated as a 17-year-old teenage girl."
Lawyers asked Owes's bail to be reduced or for her to be released on her own recognizance, and officials from Reverend Calvin Butts's Abyssinian Baptist Church offered to sign a bond that would require the church to pay $50,000 of Owes skipped a court date. However, the judge said no to the plan. "I'm not altering this today...I'm not reducing the bail," he said, and ordered Owes to return on March 21st.
Previously Butts called for Owes's release, comparing her to Patty Hearst and arguing that she was just trying to fit in with the wrong crowd. But McLaughlin read from a taped conversation Owes had with her jailed boyfriend Jaquan Layne, in which he told her, "If the [expletive] gets crazy...head shots only." McLaughlin said, "there's nothing vague about that."
