What is Demetrius Flenory Sr.’s release date?

Amid season 3 of the hit Starz show BMF, out March 1, 2024, there was an update on the real-life Demetrius Flenory Sr.‘s prison release date. Flenory Sr., played by his son, Demetrius Flenory Jr., in the Starz series, received a 30-year prison sentence in 2008 in Michigan on a large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering conviction.

The Detroit News broke the story that Flenory Sr., also known as “Big Meech,” would spend less time in jail than expected, and the younger Flenory, aka “Lil Meech,” also shared the update in his Instagram story. Lil Meech’s dad founded the Black Mafia Family (BMF) in 1985 with Meech’s uncle, Flenory Sr.’s brother, Terry Lee “Southwest Tee” Flenory.

In the 2000s, however, a federal investigation revealed that BMF — ostensibly a hip-hop record label and creative agency — was a front for money laundering and drug trafficking, at one point moving an estimated $270 million in cocaine. Flenory Sr.’s initial 30-year prison sentence was later reduced to 20 years.

Lil Meech filed an early release petition

News that Demetrius Flenory Sr. might get out early emerged in January 2024 when the Meech’s new attorney, Brittany K. Barnett — co-founder of the Buried Alive Project, which, according to the organization’s website, “fights to free people serving draconian sentences handed down under outdated federal drug laws” — filed a petition in a Michigan court for his early release.

According to the petition, Big Meech secured his GED behind bars, and otherwise kept up good behavior, earning him sentence credit as per the U.S.S.G. (United States Sentencing Guidelines) Amendment 782, and therefore Flenory Sr. should be eligible to take 32 months, or around three years, off his sentence. About a month after Barnett’s petition was filed, a Michigan judge declared Flenory Sr. would be released in 2025.

BMF was renewed for season 4

As reports of Big Meech’s early release spread, BMF producer 50 Cent celebrated that his show had been renewed for season 4. 50 Cent didn’t mention Flenory Sr.’s new release date in his post, but in the comments, one person wrote, with Big Meech free, “[W]e need the real Meech & Terry [Lee Flenory] next year once Meech is home.” (Terry was released in 2020 to serve the remainder of his sentence on house arrest.) Meanwhile, also responding to 50 Cent’s post announcing BMF season 4, another person added, “Maybe [Big Meech] will be able to play himself.”