Law enforcement officials in Cache County say they aren’t happy that a rapper they helped arrest and prosecute received a pardon from President Donald Trump.
Specifically, they object to the suggestion that their work was done for political reasons.
“We feel strongly the Justice System in Cache County is far from a ‘weaponized system of justice,’” Sheriff Chad Jensen and County Attorney Taylor Sorensen wrote in a joint statement released Thursday.
“We are extremely proud of the work our investigator and prosecutors did on this case, as well as grateful for all the help we received from other local and federal agencies,” the officials said in the statement.
On Wednesday, Trump pardoned 25-year-old rapper Kentrell Gaulden, known professionally as YoungBoy Never Broke Again or NBA YoungBoy.
Gaulden had served nearly two years in prison after pleading guilty to federal gun charges in Louisiana. He also was prosecuted in Utah for possessing a firearm as a felon, for which he received five years’ probation and a $200,000 fine.
The Trump administration did not issue a statement explaining the pardon for Gaulden, one of 16 Trump issued on Wednesday. In another case that day, of a sheriff in Virginia found guilty of bribery charges, Trump complained that the U.S. Department of Justice has been “weaponized.”
Court records show the Cache County Sheriff’s Office arrested Gaulden in April 2024, after an investigation that started the previous September. Investigators found a connection between Gaulden and a series of fraudulent prescriptions in various names at pharmacies throughout Cache County and other Utah locations.
Gaulden and others used physicians’ names to call in and pick up prescriptions, the court documents said. They picked up prescriptions this way 18 times before Gaulden’s arrest, the documents said.
Gaulden, the court records said, reached a “no contest” plea deal in Utah’s First District Court. As a result, the felony charges were reduced to class A misdemeanors. Gaulden ultimately was ordered to pay $25,000.
However, the arresting officer noted in an initial affidavit that Gaulden had a firearm in his Weber County home, which he had moved from an open area to a drawer. At the time, Gaulden was already being prosecuted in federal court in Louisiana on gun charges.
The disclosure of the firearm in Weber County led to Gaulden facing the firearms possession charge in a Utah court, for which he received the five years’ probation. At the same time, he pleaded guilty to the Louisiana charges, and was sentenced to 23 months in prison.
Gaulden was released from prison in March, after getting credit for time served, The Associated Press reported.
Trump’s pardon fully excused both cases, which means Gaulden will no longer face any conditions, such as the requirements of parole, like drug testing.
Along with Gaulden, Trump pardoned 15 other people on Wednesday and commuted the sentences of six more. The AP reported that those people include a gang leader, reality show stars and politicians.
Alice Marie Johnson, who is known as Trump’s “pardon czar,” told a Fox News interviewer that before recommending Gaulden’s pardon, she considered that he was young and grew up in an impoverished neighborhood.
“Most of those were gun charges without the guns being discharged,” she said.
In an Instagram post Wednesday, Gaulden thanked Trump and Johnson for the pardon, saying it gave him “the opportunity to keep building — as a man, a father, and as an artist.”
“And thank you to everyone who believed in me,” he said in the post, which concluded “I’m grateful. I’m focused. I’m ready.”
