Bodyguards for troubled rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine turned New York Metropolis into the Wild West final summer time, piling into SUVs and chasing a person for 20 blocks with lights flashing after he tried to file cellphone video of the recording star, prosecutors mentioned Monday.
5 members of 6ix9ine’s safety crew, together with a retired New York Metropolis police detective accused of mendacity and trying to cowl up the incident, had been indicted Monday on theft, false impersonation and different prices stemming from the pursuit final August in Harlem.
Tekashi 6ix9ine, whose actual identify is Daniel Hernandez, was not charged.
“A celeb entourage just isn’t a police division, and Manhattan just isn’t the Wild West,” Manhattan District Legal professional Cyrus Vance Jr. mentioned in a written assertion saying the indictments.
“As alleged, these highly-compensated vigilantes caravanned via the streets of Harlem with sirens flashing with a view to observe a person down and steal and break his telephone,” Vance mentioned.
The previous NYPD detective, Daniel Laperuta, falsely claimed to law enforcement officials and a 911 dispatcher that the person being chased had threatened 6ix9ine’s crew with a gun, Vance mentioned.
When 6ix9ine’s bodyguards lastly confronted the person, boxing him in with their SUVs close to the Apollo Theater, they knocked his cellphone out and stomped it, Vance mentioned.
As the person wrestled with one of many bodyguards in an try and get the telephone again, Laperuta approached together with his hand on his holstered gun and one other bodyguard pointed a stun gun on the man, Vance mentioned.
The safety crew fled within the SUVs as an unmarked police automobile drove up with lights flashing, Vance mentioned.
Laperuta pleaded not responsible Monday and was anticipated to submit bail Monday afternoon. Different members of the safety crew had been anticipated to be arraigned later Monday.
Laperuta’s lawyer, Todd Cushner, mentioned he was reviewing the costs in opposition to the previous detective.
“For essentially the most half, they’re unfounded,” Cushner mentioned.
On-line courtroom information did not checklist legal professionals for the opposite members of Tekashi 6ix9ine’s safety crew who had been charged. Messages looking for remark had been left with legal professionals who’ve represented the rapper previously.
6ix9ine, a Brooklyn native, rocketed to fame as a hip-hop artist after turning into a social media phenomenon with thousands and thousands of followers on Instagram. He had a multiplatinum hit track, “Fefe,” with Nicki Minaj, which peaked at No. 3 on the pop charts in 2018, and “Stoopid,” that includes the incarcerated rapper Bobby Shmurda.
Since then, he is been out and in of courtroom — and jail.
Dealing with a compulsory minimal of 37 years in jail for gang crimes together with allegedly orchestrating a taking pictures that left an harmless bystander wounded, 6ix9ine began cooperating with federal prosecutors and testifying in opposition to members of the gang,the 9 Trey Gangsta Bloods.
He additionally testified that two males kidnapped him in July 2018, forcing him right into a stolen automobile at gunpoint and stopping at occasions to beat and taunt him earlier than taking him to his Brooklyn dwelling and stealing a bag full of jewellery.
6ix9ine’s cooperation earned him leniency from prosecutors and scorn from fellow rappers, with Snoop Dogg calling him a “snitch.” In December 2019, 6ix9ine was sentenced to 2 years in federal jail. Just some months later, a choose ordered himreleased to dwelling confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Testifying in 2019, Tekashi 6ix9ine defined to jurors that his function within the 9 Trey gang was to “simply hold making hits and be the monetary assist … so they might purchase weapons and stuff like that.”
Requested what he acquired in return, 6ix9ine responded: “My profession. I acquired the road credibility. The movies, the music, the safety — all the above.”
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Observe Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak
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