UPDATE: Freddie Gibbs was released on bail today, reports Reuters. Gibbs was freed on bail of 50,000 euros ($56,560) and had to surrender his passport, the Vienna criminal court spokeswoman said.
Previous story (August 17):
Freddie Gibbs was in safe zone until now since he wasn’t formally charged yet but that has changed today.
Gibbs has now been charged with sexual assault in Austria, according to a Reuters report. He is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Vienna while he was on tour last year. The incident supposedly happened backstage during a concert. Gibbs was arrested in June in France and then extradited to Austria where he will stay in custody until the matter progresses.
“He is alleged to have administered knock-out drops to a woman and then have abused her sexually while she was in a defenseless state,” a spokesman for Vienna’s criminal court said, referring to drugs used to spike the woman’s drink.
The rapper was charged on Tuesday with “sexual abuse of a defenseless or psychologically impaired person”, and if convicted faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Freddie Gibbs’s lawyer Theodore Simon claimed that Gibbs is innocent:
“While Freddie Gibbs was charged with an offense today, it remains only an allegation, and it does not in any way change the actual facts that Freddie Gibbs is 100% innocent.
He continues to pursue every available means to demonstrate that he is absolutely innocent and that he has been both belatedly and wrongly accused. As the investigation and process continues, Mr. Gibbs remains hopeful that a thorough, searching and complete investigation will reveal the actual facts, including the absence of any scientific, physical, or credible evidence implicating him, thereby paving the way for his exoneration and return to his family and one-year old child. In accordance with Austrian procedure Mr. Gibbs has not as yet had the opportunity to provide the authorities and the Court with the substantial and compelling exonerating evidence that he has compiled.
Consistent with the available legal practices and procedures in Austria, Mr. Gibbs will ask the Court to release him on bail, under reasonable terms and conditions, as was done in France.
Through counsel Mr. Freddie Gibbs has consistently remained fully cooperative with law enforcement offices and judicial systems in both France and Austria and will continue to do so.”