No one can imagine the agony a mother goes through with her only son incarcerated. In an exclusive talk, Shyne’s mother Frances Franklin speaks on the trial that changed her life.

Frances Franklin gave birth to her only child, Jamal Barrow, in Belize on November 8, 1978. (Her baby’s daddy, Dean Barrow, is the former deputy prime minister of the Central American nation.) Seven years later, she brought her baby boy to America—Flatbush, Brooklyn, to be exact.

Times were tough for a single parent in the hood. Frances worked as a housekeeper, hustling as many jobs as she could to keep a roof over her young son’s head. Her mother helped out, but often left to his own devices, Jamal found his way into trouble. He was shot in the shoulder when he was just 15.

Doing everything she could to prevent her son from becoming just another statistic, she moved the fam to another section of Brooklyn and encouraged him to hit the books and stay off the streets. Jamal got into writing poetry, and seemed to be headed for college. One day, Foxy Brown’s ex-manager Don Pooh heard the young buck rhyming in a barbershop. Soon after a meeting with Sean “Puffy” Combs, Jamal “Shyne” Barrow was signed to the hottest label in the game, Bad Boy Records.

December 27, 1999 is a date that Frances will never forget. Shyne, Puffy and the Bad Boy entourage were partying at Manhattan’s Club New York when what started as a minor dispute led to chaos and gunshots. Three bystanders were struck by bullets. Shyne, Puff and his bodyguard Anthony “Wolf” Jones were arrested and hit with weapons charges. Shyne, though, faced additional charges of attempted murder, reckless endangerment and various counts of assault.

The high-profile trial began January 17, 2001. Each defendant had separate counsel. Shyne’s lawyers, Ian Niles and Murray Richman, were paid by Bad Boy, but Puff retained the more famous names Benjamin Brafman and Johnnie Cochran.

Frances, who attended every day of the two-month trial, believes that the turning point occurred when the defense called a witness, Club New York bouncer Cherise Myers, who named Shyne as the shooter, and (in a detail that differed from an earlier account she’d given police) said that Puff had no gun. A week later, in Niles’ closing arguments, he acknowledged, for the first time in the trial, that Shyne did have a gun that night. (Later that day, Shyne gave an angry interview to XXL, in which he publicly severed ties with Bad Boy. See page 92.)

On March 16, 2001, while Puffy and Wolf were both acquitted of all wrongdoing, Shyne was found guilty of two counts of weapons possession, two counts of assault and reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and is currently incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York (formerly home to Tupac Shakur and Ol’ Dirty Bastard).

Three years later, Shyne has secured the heavyweight legal help of Alan Dershowitz in hopes of winning an appeal. Rumors of his impending release have reached a fever pitch and, as XXL went to press, label sources confirmed that Def Jam has entered into a multimillion dollar joint-venture deal with Shyne and his company, gangland Records.

Frances, meanwhile, remains convinced that her son took the fall for his boss. Holding him responsible for Shyne’s current plight, she often refers to Puff as “the other guy” to emphasize her anger. Today, in an exclusive interview, Mama’s got somethin’ to say.

XXL: In the aftermath of the trial, you were quoted in a couple of newspaper articles. You seemed very upset with the things the mainstream media was writing about your son.

They were saying that he was a gun-toting brother. They were saying he was reckless, which he was not. He just made one mistake. I don’t see why during the trial they really bashed him. The reckless endangerment, the hurting of other people—they don’t have proof of that. There was another gun in the club too, a .40 caliber there. Linked to nobody. It wasn’t even a trial about him. It was all about the other guy. I always wondered why.

Do you think your son got a fair trial?

I don’t think it was a fair trial because of the lawyers. The lawyers didn’t do their job for him. My son’s lawyers were working more for the other guy. Ian Niles was a friend of Puffy. That’s the way Jamal got to know him.

If the other guy’s paying for your defense, most naturally the other guy can call the shots and say, “I want you to do this” and “I want you to do that.” It’s a conflict of interest right there. Ian and Murray Richman didn’t care about working for Shyne. Puffy was telling them what to do, what not to do.

Were you in the courtroom during the trial?

I went there for three people. I didn’t go there to just support my son. I went to support, God bless him, Wolf, Puffy and Jamal. I went there not knowing anybody, this was the first time I ever went into a courtroom. The first day we was sitting on the other side [the prosecution’s side], ’cause I didn’t know there was gonna be any place for me to be. When we had a break me and my mom went downstairs and, later, we were coming up in the elevator with Puff. He looks at me and said, “You look familiar.” And I said, “Yes, I’m Shyne’s mother.” He said, “Oh, you’re Shyne’s mother. I knew you looked familiar.” And then he said, “Well, I want you to come and sit on the other side [the defense’s side] with us.” So I said, “OK.”

Days after that, when me and my mom came, there was no space for us, no seats for us. Already the people for Puff were there, seated—they weren’t thinking about Shyne’s mother or his grandmother. A lot of people came in support of Puff. So this tall guy, the guard, one day he had to say to them, “There has to be a row of seats for Shyne’s mom and his family.” And that’s the way we tried to squeeze ourselves in. And from there I looked at them and thought, they don’t care anything about us—it’s all about the other guy.

What was your opinion of the way the trial was going?

It was looking bad—not for Shyne but for Puff. Puffy’s driver went on the stand talking about the gun, and that was really looking bad for Puff. And I felt very bad too. And then Cherise Myers came on the stand and I could not believe it! Puff came up to me to apologize. And I was so shocked, I couldn’t say anything to him.

He apologized to you after Cherise Myers testified?

Yes, he said “I’m sorry.” Puff came to me and said, “I’m sorry.”

Her testimony was damaging to Shyne?

She totally changed her story. When we was going down in the elevator with the lawyers, I said to Murray, “How did you let this happen? You didn’t know Cherise was going to talk against my son?” He said, “You have to ask Puff that.” That’s what opened my eyes. If you are representing my child, how could you let something like this happen? But then again, it’s about who calls the shots.

I always thought there was gonna be a unity between them, that they were going to work something out. But he wasn’t looking out for nobody else but Puff.

Do you think they always had that intention? Or did something happen in the trial that made them go into panic mode?

I think he always had that intention, because we never knew what was going on until that day I walked into the courtroom and I heard this and I heard that. I don’t think he had a way of letting my son get off. Another thing I was totally upset with was that the jury didn’t even bring Puff in guilty of gun possession. Nothing!

Every day I get… Not every day now, because I’ve accepted it—but still not fully... But, God did it for a reason. Because if Jamal had gotten off, if he was free, maybe he would have to go back with the other guy. He betrayed my son totally. I don’t know who in the whole world doesn’t see that.

But I read in the Village Voice that after the verdicts were delivered, Puff, his mother and Johnnie Cochran came over to you and said something to the effect of, “We’re going to appeal this, we’re gonna do whatever we can.”

I wasn’t even there. I was not hearing anything. I was in total shock. I didn’t even shed a tear then. I couldn’t even cry. I cannot remember what Puffy said. I was out for a few seconds. I did not think that was going to happen. I didn’t like the defense. ’Cause all along they were saying Jamal didn’t have a gun, he wasn’t guilty. And then all of a sudden they have a plan. You understand? I didn’t like when I heard my son was gonna acknowledge guilt in any way. They threw the bag in his lap, let him be the fall guy. They think he had nothing to lose.