Cage The Elephant’s Matt Shultz takes no-jail plea deal for criminal gun possession

Cage The Elephant frontman Matt Shultz has walked away with a no-jail plea deal after being arrested for illegal possession of two loaded guns in January.

Shultz was arrested at the Bowery Hotel in Lower Manhattan on January 5, the day after an employee allegedly saw him carrying a handgun into the ground floor public toilets. The prosecutors claimed Shultz appeared to be intoxicated at the time and when the police arrived at his hotel room, they found two guns and a set of 11 Polaroid photos, some of which showed the firearm in question.

Following the arrest, Shultz’s lawyer Sanford Talkin told a judge that the guns were purchased legally and registered to him, but not in New York.

Now, The New York Post reports that Shultz pleaded guilty to three charges of attempted criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon.

A deal was struck that would mean Shultz would avoid jail should he abide by certain conditions. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Cori Weston told Shultz that he must “stay out of trouble for one year” and show up for all his court dates. If he does this, he can withdraw the guilty pleas for the two felony counts and receive a one-year conditional release for a misdemeanour charge. If he doesn’t do this, however, he faces up to seven years in prison.

Cage The Elephant released their latest album, ‘Social Cues’, in January of 2019.

Speaking to NME the same year, Schultz revealed he wanted to work with Mark Ronson,  Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem.

“Paul McCartney would be incredible,” he added. “I met him at festival and lost myself. I stammered: ‘Uh…you uh, were the voice of a generation Your melodies were so good!’ That’s all I could get out. But our guitarist Nick Bockrath actually ended up at a dinner party playing bongos in a drum circle with Paul and John McEnroe!”

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