Grammy-nominated rapper Mystikal has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for third-degree rape.
The “Danger” rapper was arrested in the summer of 2022 and booked into Ascension Parish Jail in Louisiana and charged with first-degree rape, simple robbery, domestic abuse, assault and strangulation, false imprisonment, and simple criminal damage to property after the victim identified the rapper as the suspect at the hospital where he was being treated for injuries.
According to Baton Rouge-based ABC affiliate WBRZ, the victim told a Louisiana court on Tuesday that Mystikal, whose real name is Michael Tyler, beat and strangled her, ripped braids out of her hair and forcibly raped her during the 2022 incident. The victim asked for the maximum sentence for the rapper.
“If I did that to you, I deserve the maximum sentence,” Tyler said in the courtroom before being sentenced to 20 years for third-degree rape, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years with no possibility of early release or parole.
In March, Tyler pleaded guilty, reducing his charge from first-degree rape to third-degree. In Louisiana, first-degree rape carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. According to WBRZ, the rapper's attorney filed a motion to withdraw the guilty plea days before Tyler was sentenced, but the motion was denied.
The New Orleans-born artist was convicted more than two decades ago of sexual assault after pleading guilty to the charges in 2003. He served six years in prison and was released in 2010.
The rapper was previously indicted in 2017 on rape and kidnapping charges stemming from allegations from 2016. He spent 18 months in prison before being released in 2019 on $3 million bail, the Associated Press reported. The district attorney for Caddo Parish in Louisiana finally dropped those charges in 2020 after a second grand jury declined to return an indictment.
With his raspy vocal intensity and scream-like musical delivery, Mystikal shot to the top of the charts with Master P's No Limit Records in the late 1990s. In 2004, the rapper's original label, Jive Records, released two compilations of his music, “Prince of the South… The Hits” and “Chopped & Screwed.”
Former Times staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this report.
