WATCH: Man Convicted in Death of Rapper Julio Foolio Pleads for His Life

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]a lawyer makes an interesting well proclamation about the conviction um for killing Julio Fulio. Uh that basically you can make him a forever slave that that that should be the the penalty rather than the death sentence. It's a hell of a story. This is 2026 obviously.

[00:00:23]Um here it is.

[00:00:25]>> Based on Mr. Gath's age, physical abilities, things like that. Do you think that the prison would benefit from him in a work capacity if he were sentenced to life without parole?

[00:00:34]>> I say yes. With my experience, not only just in classification, but as former warden and even as a jail administrator, he's someone that's young. Um he's healthy. Um in reality, we need that labor. We need that um sweat equity. And we will put them out there to work because we do have an aging prison population, jail administration. We have that. So we put these young individuals to work and get some sweat equity out of them since they u are young and actually can do the work.

[00:01:05]Now why is he able to say this? Well, many of us would proclaim and we learned in school that slavery was abolished.

[00:01:14]Okay. Uh but it wasn't. If you actually read the amendment, the amendment says with this exception and the exception is a penal colony or a penal system as we describe it today. Now, if you are in the penal system, slavery is perfectly legal in the context of that caveat.

[00:01:39]Hell of a story. Put it up mass.

[00:01:43]Sean Gathight, now 20, testified during the penalty phase of the very high-profile Tampa trial connected to the 2024 killing of Mr. Charles Jones. That is the Jacksonville, Florida rapper known publicly as Julio Fulio. Prosecutors say the deadly shooting was tied to a longunning gang conflict that spilled from Jacksonville into Tampa and ended outside a hotel parking lot and a barrage of gunfire. This whole thing is sad because not only does it include um gang and territorialism, uh it includes very young people doing very immature things. Okay. Um, put up mask. So, you have Gathright who was convicted alongside Isaiah and Chance, Rashad Murphy, and Dave Murphy in connection with the Jones death. Prosecutors argued the group traveled from Jacksonville to Tampa specifically to track and kill the rapper.

[00:02:48]Now, the same jury that convicted the four men must help determine whether they receive life sentences or face execution. So Gathight used his testimony to speak about his regret and how he plans to move forward. Here it is.

[00:03:02]>> I just want to address the court today and you know I'm not here to dispute anything. I'm just here to be a man and take responsibility and express my feelings. I feel very remorseful. You know um this is a terrible situation.

[00:03:19]It's been a a traumatic experience. Um, you know, to the victim's family, you know, I I want to send my deepest condolences and my, you know, I understand that it's hard losing a child, a best friend, a brother, a cousin.

[00:03:43]And for that I just cannot say sorry enough you know and try to you know continue a humble life a righteous life you know try to do the right things at all times and you know there's no words he can say that would justify taking somebody's life.

[00:04:10]There are no words that a parent could hear that would make that loss more manageable.

[00:04:21]It's nothing for himself.

[00:04:26]Um, it sounds like he has found his humanity even though he may have lost the world.

[00:04:35]And I'm reminded of something that says, "What good is it for a man to gain the world and lose his soul?"

[00:04:46]Um, according to courtroom coverage, Gathight explained that he spends much of his time participating in Christian related activities behind bars, including Bible study groups, mentoring fellow inmates and press circles.

[00:04:59]uh he portrayed himself as someone attempting to find meaning and direction after the violent events that led to his conviction. Now remember this is all according to the court uh documents.

[00:05:09]This is all gang related which means he comes from a particular atmosphere, lifestyle, social economic complex, experiences, exposures and environments.

[00:05:16]Okay, that's what that means. Um now now I want to pivot back to the use of the slave labor part of this. Okay. In 2024, a statistic analysis showed that prison jobs pay a quarter, 25 cent or less per hour in 14 states.

[00:05:48]Colorado inmates received an average hourly comp compensation of less than $1 for common prison labor like maintenance or work in the kitchen. Meanwhile, the mean hourly wage for the state was $34.60 in 2023. Other higher paying states include Nebraska, Maine, Wyoming, and Montana. At the other end of the spectrum were Oklahoma, which is at 8 pennies per hour. Missouri will give you six pennies per hour. Louisiana will give you three pennies per hour. Now, here's the irony of this.

[00:06:38]Go to the historical record.

[00:06:41]There were some enslaved individuals who actually got payment.

[00:06:50]It's there. It's a documentary about it.

[00:06:52]Some of them received a little money to go get candy if they wanted a treat or something on the Sunday night, maybe even a Saturday evening. They got paid pennies.

[00:07:03]I don't know why we even call it payment.

[00:07:06]So just because you receive some pennies, that doesn't mean you're not a slave.

[00:07:14]That's my point.

[00:07:16]Now they're making the open argument in court.

[00:07:21]Understand? I'm not uh adversarial to uh individuals taking responsibility for their crimes.

[00:07:33]I'm prog grace. I'm pro- forgiveness.

[00:07:35]I'm antithetical to the death penalty as a policy.

[00:07:41]But this is an open argument about slave labor in an American courtroom.

[00:07:47]That is what precedent has been set. An open proclamation to use young black men for slavery.

[00:07:58]Now, if you would like to contextualize that, go ahead.

[00:08:02]There will be a day where more enlightened individuals are in charge, hopefully our youth, and they will judge these moments and say that is wrong in all context to make that kind of argument because the the incentive to arrest in particular young black men for particular social economic environments u some of which I had to endure myself becomes the the catalyst the the fact that they can become slaves becomes the catalyst for the arrest in the first place. As if we don't already have that.

[00:08:40]Apart uh from receiving basic things like soap, they will get a ration of toilet paper, a ration of toothpaste, clothes, and three meals a day. Those incarcerated have to pay for additional hygiene products and food themselves to be able to afford reading glasses. They would have to work 17 hours on average.

[00:09:05]Toothpaste, additional toothpaste, they would have to work about 11 hours. If they want deodorant, now deodorant doesn't come with the package. They got to work 10 hours to get deodorant. And they mark up all of this. You got to get it from commissary at the jail. They mark this stuff up by 600%.

[00:09:22]Who's making that money? Well, the contractors. Who are the contractors?

[00:09:26]Who are friends of the of the prison warden?

[00:09:32]Many of these are no bid contracts, private business.

[00:09:36]Uh, keep in mind some states don't even pay the pennies for the labor. That would include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas.

[00:09:54]same corporates.

[00:09:56]Okay. Um and the labor is involuntary in many cases. For many people in prison, jobs are done under threat of penalty.

[00:10:03]Excuse me. Quote, "What makes it forced is that if you quit, you're punished."

[00:10:10]John Perez told the nation uh last year, "Perez worked in textile manufacturing in the New York State prison system, making 32 cents an hour." He continued, "In prison, there's no calling in sick for COVID. you're going into solitary confinement if you if you're going to get a behavior report or you're going to get a behavior report. Um, so you get you get put in a box.

[00:10:36]That's the same thing they did to the enslaved during the era of legal slavery in the United States of America. If you did not perform, they put you in the box. They called it the sweat box.

[00:10:49]So now they have a different box. is called the solitary confinement box. But it's the same element, different era, same spirit.

[00:11:04]All right, dear brother. This is this is a sad case. Period.

[00:11:10]But a policy could emerge out of this case to where open arguments can be made inside of a court that says, "Well, listen, uh, because they're young and they're strong, we can make slaves out of them forever." Uh, so let's consider that for the court record.

[00:11:27]>> And, you know, that's certainly an interesting argument to hear from your attorney. Um, that, you know, I've worked in a courthouse since I was 16.

[00:11:34]I've heard many, many, many ridiculous arguments um before.

[00:11:40]And that one certainly was up there. Now granted, if it works, I guess it works. Uh it is it certainly is gross hearing and I I recognize that we're talking about a convicted murderer. Um so I'm going color my commentary under that uh pretext, but it's is it's disgusting to hear. And it's disgusting to hear the gleefulness and I'm assuming that was a prison warden or whoever was uh uh testifying there. the gleefulness in which he speaks about, oh yeah, we we would love to have his sweat equity.

[00:12:10]Yes, he's a piece of meat. Let's throw him in there. We're talking about human being. This is a human being still as a human being has done an egregious act.

[00:12:17]Uh but a human being nonetheless, like you said, there could very well have been um mitigating circumstances in his childhood. You know, I I try not to judge anybody no matter what they do. My Angelo had a poem that she says uh I'm a human being. Nothing human is alien to me to suggest that all of us are capable of the same greatness that we see other great people doing. But we're also, you know, one or two bad days away from some of the less desirable things that we see in other people. So, I try to judge folks, but um and I just lost my point doing that. But, uh yeah, I I I am mortified and I think I think you're right. Had there been a different color of inmate, I don't think the conversation would have been the same. And I I recognize that the attorney's got to make an argument because you're arguing against the death penalty.

[00:13:03]>> Um, >> but feel like you could pick something else other than yes, we can essentially turn him to a slave of the state. And wouldn't that be so much more convenient for us than killing him? Cuz if we kill him, he's just dead. We cannot use him for the rest of his life. Uh, and as you alluded to, I'm from a state in which we don't reimburse our inmates. Now granted, we're talking about zero to eight pennies, so really not that much of a distinction across the board, but I think that that definitely does need to be reformed. And that's not a that's not going to be popular stance. A lot of people don't don't give credence um or have patience for sympathy for people who in their head they've identified as as bad people, quote unquote. Um and and that's tragic because really to me it has nothing to do with the type of people that are in prison. It has everything to do with what does our state need to look like? What do we envision America? What do we envision Alabama or Georgia or Texas? Do we want to exist in an environment which we are empowering the state to enslave people, >> right? And and creating even more empowerment for because it already exists within a constitutional framework. Unfortunately, that allows for penal u related slavery. And here's the the other part of this that that gets uh missed sometimes.

[00:14:15]Many of these prison um labor forces or slavery forces, they work to develop or build or manufacture um things like um plastic um cups and utensils. Um sometimes even your state license plate u manufacturing is organized and conducted by prison slave labor. Now, here's here's irony. when they get out of prison because over 90% of individuals who are in the penal system will be free when they get out of that system. Guess what they can't qualify to do to work at those same companies that they've been working for for 5, 10, 15, sometimes damn near 20 years. They have experience, they have knowledge, they have institutional knowhow, and they have paid for their crimes and cannot get hired at those same agencies. All right, we'll bring you updates as they come. um in the development of this beyond that particular courtroom.