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Judge & Jury Bring The HAMMER DOWN ON Ar Ab In STIFF Verdict! Chuck D Claims Show Like Maury & Jerry Springer Are Ran By FEDS & More!
His hard-bitten lyrics and bruising diss tracks have earned gangsta rapper AR-Ab a dedicated following in his native Philadelphia over the last decade, and the respect of hip-hop heavyweights ranging from Drake to producer Swizz Beatz.
Drawn by his tales of street justice and boasts of his dominance in the drug-world, viewers have flocked by the millions to his self-released YouTube music video
But on Tuesday, federal jurors decided that AR-Ab’s tough-talking kingpin persona was more than just bombast to burnish his music cred. It was, they concluded, a reflection of a real-life criminal career.
Jurors found the rapper — whose legal name is Abdul West — and three members of his entourage guilty of turning their record label, Original Block Hustlaz (OBH), into a large-scale North Philly drug trafficking operation implicated in at least two killings.
Although federal prosecutors did not charge them in connection with those deaths, they left little doubt as to whom they believed to be responsible.
“Every one of them had their hustles,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Everett R. Witherell told jurors during his closing argument last week. “But it all ran through Mr. West.”
West, 37, sat stoically next to his lawyer as the jury announced its verdicts Tuesday on counts including conspiracy and distribution of crack cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. As U.S. marshals handcuffed him and led him back to prison, he smiled and blew a kiss to supporters and fans in the courtroom.
He faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 15 years under recidivist provisions in federal drug laws.
The verdict came after a two-week trial that put West’s music under a microscope and raised questions about just how much a genre defined by hyper-masculine boasting of street-honed toughness can be taken at its word.
In West’s case, prosecutors argued, his lyrics and social media persona were more than just marketing: They amounted to a confession to crimes.
Jurors were shown several of West’s videos and dozens of Instagram posts as FBI agents pointed to direct links to crimes that he or members of his crew had committed. That evidence was buttressed by a trove of more traditional evidence investigators amassed over two years, including wire recordings, pole camera video, cell phone location data, and text messages pulled from the defendants’ phones.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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By SamAnt O'GodHis hard-bitten lyrics and bruising diss tracks have earned gangsta rapper AR-Ab a dedicated following in his native Philadelphia over the last decade, and the respect of hip-hop heavyweights ranging from Drake to producer Swizz Beatz.
Drawn by his tales of street justice and boasts of his dominance in the drug-world, viewers have flocked by the millions to his self-released YouTube music video
But on Tuesday, federal jurors decided that AR-Ab’s tough-talking kingpin persona was more than just bombast to burnish his music cred. It was, they concluded, a reflection of a real-life criminal career.
Jurors found the rapper — whose legal name is Abdul West — and three members of his entourage guilty of turning their record label, Original Block Hustlaz (OBH), into a large-scale North Philly drug trafficking operation implicated in at least two killings.
Although federal prosecutors did not charge them in connection with those deaths, they left little doubt as to whom they believed to be responsible.
“Every one of them had their hustles,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Everett R. Witherell told jurors during his closing argument last week. “But it all ran through Mr. West.”
West, 37, sat stoically next to his lawyer as the jury announced its verdicts Tuesday on counts including conspiracy and distribution of crack cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. As U.S. marshals handcuffed him and led him back to prison, he smiled and blew a kiss to supporters and fans in the courtroom.
He faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 15 years under recidivist provisions in federal drug laws.
The verdict came after a two-week trial that put West’s music under a microscope and raised questions about just how much a genre defined by hyper-masculine boasting of street-honed toughness can be taken at its word.
In West’s case, prosecutors argued, his lyrics and social media persona were more than just marketing: They amounted to a confession to crimes.
Jurors were shown several of West’s videos and dozens of Instagram posts as FBI agents pointed to direct links to crimes that he or members of his crew had committed. That evidence was buttressed by a trove of more traditional evidence investigators amassed over two years, including wire recordings, pole camera video, cell phone location data, and text messages pulled from the defendants’ phones.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.