By Corey May
Treshon “Parkway Tee” Stokes, 27, was arrested on April 21, 2016 at a residence located in the 1800 block of East 1st Street for possession of narcotics, according to an arrest report.
Editor’s note: An appeal was filed in the Seventh District of Texas Court of Appeals in Potter County on Dec. 05, 2019. Further movement in the case is still pending.
On April 22, 2019, Treshon “Parkway Tee” Stokes, charged with possession of a controlled substance with the intent to deliver in the amount of four grams or more but less than 200 grams, was indicted by a Lubbock County Grand Jury, according to county court records.
Stokes, a hip-hop rapper known by his stage name, is originally from Lubbock but moved to Arlington with his mother, Latrice Stokes. Treshon would often come back to Lubbock for events and performances; however, one trip, she said, changed their lives forever.
“There were five other individuals in the house that possessed their own illegal substance, each individual had something on them,”she said. “They combined the total of the illegal substance that they collected that day, and they charged each individual with the total amount of everything in the house.”
Treshon was arrested on April 21, 2016, at a residence located in the 1800 block of East First Street in Lubbock, according to a police report. Treshon was arrested in a house with five others. Cocaine, marijuana and liquid codeine was seized from the property in addition to a firearm, according to the report.
Police reports state officials obtained several amounts of green leafy substances, white rock-like substances, and codeine liquids from within the residence Treshon was arrested in.
Those same documents show Treshon’s trial was set to take place in in the 364th District Court on March 4, 2019 but he failed to appear. On March 2, 2019, Treshon went live on Facebook to state he was in Lubbock for a concert that night, according to Lubbock County records.
Lyrics from Stokes’ songs and music videos in addition to posts from his Facebook account were admitted as evidence during the trial, according to court documents. Some of the posts include references to gang activity.
Those same records state Treshon made multiple social media posts on his Facebook after his trial date, including one stating March 2 would be the day of his last concert in Lubbock because of legal reasons.
The trial went on for five days, and the final verdict: the jury found him guilty, and assed his punishment at confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for a period of 25 years. Saying the trial was unfair and biased, Latrice started a petition to help her son because she felt the jury was not diverse enough.
“(There were) 12 Anglo-Americans over 55 – over the age of 55 – citizens of Lubbock, Texas,” Latrice said. “I don’t feel like that was diverse enough.”
Treshon, according to his mother, is receiving excessive punishment for the type of music he produces; a move she said violates his Constitutional rights.
She said Treshon’s lyrics were selected as evidence to be used against him in court. And while Treshon has songs promoting good behavior, then lyrics from those songs were not used in the trial, she said.
According to Latrice, Treshon’s music is not different from any other songs one would hear on mainstream radio.
“I guess that’s part of the reason why I’m having such difficult time accepting the outcome of this is, because in him making his music, that was the intent all along was for his music to make it to the radio,” she said.
She said she found the prosecution’s depiction of Treshon’s lyrics heartbreaking because they had dreamed of hearing his music on the radio someday, she said. Additionally, she said she believes Treshon’s defense made little effort to defend his innocence as fervently as they should have.
“It was as if his defense — they weren’t able to express anything good about him,” she said. “They weren’t able to object to anything that the state was presenting. It was as if they had lost before they even started. And that is the reputation of Lubbock, Texas.”
About Reece Nations, Managing Editor
