Brothers Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory and Terry “Southwest T” Flenory built a drug trade that made them millionaires, claim authorities, and brought them into the world of hip hop. 

Their Black Mafia Family (BMF) rose from the streets of Southwest Detroit in the late 1980s, evolving from one of the most influential crime families in the country to a hip-hop entertainment company.

The brothers were both arrested in 2005. In 2008, Terry and Demetrius were sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. Authorities claimed BMF raked in a whopping $270 million-plus in profits, employed more than 500 people, and distributed thousands of kilograms of cocaine, The Detroit News reported.

In May 2020, Big Meech asked to leave federal prison 11 years early. He was rejected. He appealed the decision and was again rejected, Detroit News reported. In February 2021, Big Meech was denied his request for compassionate release for the third time by the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. 

His brother, Terry Flenory, known as Southwest T, was released from federal prison in May 2020 to serve his time on house arrest due to the covid-19 pandemic, WXYZ reported.

“I’m fighting an offense, it’s too much time for a first-time nonviolent offense. I can’t point out the mistakes that brought me down because it brought me down, my brother’s indictment. I can’t pinpoint all the finger at him, but the thing is I didn’t get caught for the things that I do know,” Big Meech said in an interview with Cavario, founder of DonDiva and the founding senior editor of Hip Hop Weekly. Cavario interviewed Big Meech from his jail cell in 2019.

Now, Big Meech, who headed Black Mafia Entertainment and served as a promoter for several high-profile hip-hop artists like Jeezy and Fabulous, is appealing to the White House for compassionate release from prison. 

Big Meech has been serving a 30-year prison sentence for charges of continuing criminal enterprise and money laundering. He is due to be released in 2031. 

He is a first-time, nonviolent offender and has served 72 percent of his sentence, according to a press statement. 

Big Meech currently spends 23.5 hours a day in solitary confinement, according to a close family friend Angela Toma who is managing his case. She said this “draconian measure” is meant to protect him from covid-19 since he suffers from uncontrolled hypertension. But the confinement, he said, has been “severely harmful to his physical and mental health.”

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 74: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin returns for a new season of the GHOGH podcast to discuss Bitcoin, bubbles, and Biden. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble?

Another reason Big Meech is appealing to President Joe Biden is due to allegations of misconduct about the prosecutor who handled his case.

Big Meech’s team has accused the prosecutor, Assistant United States Attorney Dawn Ison, of misconduct for “multiple instances of blatantly false and misleading statements intended to reflect poorly on Big Meech, including claiming that murder charges were pending against him in Atlanta – which has never been the case,” according to the statement.