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Less than a week after being found guilty of “writing or publishing direct threats,” the Cuban reggaeton artist Yosvanis Sierra Hernández, known as Chocolate MC, broke his silence from a Miami-Dade County jail and claimed that his trial “was manipulated.”
The statement, given exclusively to Telemundo 51, comes at the most tense moment of his case, just as Judge Milton Hirsch is preparing to set the sentence that could send him to prison for life.
The artist, visibly distressed during the trial and unable to hold back tears upon hearing the jury's verdict, stated that he never had any real intention to kill anyone and that the entire process was conducted unfairly.
“I didn’t express myself in the right way, but I am not capable of killing anyone,” he insisted to the local media. His assertion revives the main complaint of his family, which has been denouncing serious flaws in his defense and alleged manipulation of the judicial process since day one.
The case took a decisive turn when the prosecutor's office presented a video in which the reggaeton artist claimed to have money to order the murder of Damián Valdez Galloso, identified as a potential suspect in the assassination of the singer El Taiger.
That material, originally published on social media, was deemed by the jury as a direct threat and resulted in a guilty verdict after less than an hour of deliberation. During the trial, Judge Hirsch cautioned that the charge could carry a life sentence.
For the family, however, the content of the video does not reflect the reality of a man marked by addiction and emotional instability.
His mother, Odalis Hernández, stated after the verdict that her son was ill and that the defense attorney never presented the medical reports she had submitted. She called the trial “an injustice” and denounced that the artist's behavior on social media was part of his public persona and not a criminal scheme.
The sister of the reggaeton artist has also started a petition requesting probation with rehabilitation instead of a severe sentence, arguing that "he didn't kill anyone" and that his behavior was a result of drug use and emotional pain.
Close witnesses to the musician like La Diosa, who testified during the trial, have agreed that Chocolate is a sick man, trapped for years in drugs, incapable of acting with full awareness.
The artist left the courthouse in tears, stating that she never saw him as a murderer, but rather as someone who needed help and treatment.
As the case enters its final phase, the Cuban community in Miami remains divided between those who view the verdict as a message of zero tolerance and those who see Chocolate as a tragic example of how addiction and mental decline can lead a person to their lowest point.
From his cell, the singer insists that he was a victim of an unjust process. Outside, his mother, sister, and supporters are trying to prevent the outcome from being life imprisonment.
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