Casanova Handed 15 Years In Prison Over RICO Charges
Casanova attends the BET Hip Hop Awards 2019 at Cobb Energy Center on October 05, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia.
By Marc Griffin - VIBE via Yahoo News
Wed, June 28, 2023
Casanova has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for racketeering and narcotics charges. On Tuesday (June 27), the rapper, né Caswell Senior, was found guilty of participating in a Florida shooting in July 2020, a New York City robbery in August 2018, drug trafficking, and his affiliation with the Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation Gang.
In an official press release, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams spoke about the court’s decision to hand the recording artist 188 months behind bars. Williams explained Senior’s crimes and how they weighed his punishment due to his double life as a “high-profile leader of a vicious street gang.”
“Caswell Senior is not just a notorious recording artist, but he is also a high-profile leader of a vicious street gang and a magnet for gang violence,” Williams detailed. “At a crowded Miami house party, Senior personally fired a gun that seriously injured and could have killed a victim, inciting a shootout.”
The release continued, “Further, Senior’s stature in the community was central to Gorilla Stone’s successful recruitment and nationwide expansion. Today’s sentencing — along with the other significant sentences that have been imposed in this case — shows once again that gang life is not worth it and will lead to many years in prison.”
In
early June 2023, the Roc Nation wrote a letter to District Judge Philip M. Halpern in hopes of reducing his sentence. According to AllHipHop, Casanova declared he was no longer affiliated with the Gorilla Stone Nation and was having suicidal ideations in jail.
“I am telling you and anyone that will listen that I wanted out before I was arrested and I am out,” the rapper wrote. “I learned through my music career that people will listen and that I don’t need to associate myself with a gang to succeed. I don’t need to associate with a gang even if I don’t succeed.”
“While I have been in here, I lost my father to cancer,” he continued. “While I put on that strong facade, all I wanted to do was end it. Surviving on Rikers Island and upstate correctional facilities were not easy with racial and gang tension and violence at its height… I thought I needed to stay in the life in name because it was a way to promote my career. I don’t care what the government tells you. I am telling you the truth. I was not involved in the daily activities of this gang. I wasn’t anyone’s boss.”
As he continued, Senior pleaded that he was trying to leave the gang and no longer wanted parts of the Nation.
“What I was and I regret this was a person that they could use to promote themselves in a world I swear to you I was trying to leave. I clearly did not do a good enough job of this as I did find myself in one bad situation after another,” the rhymer concluded.
Casanova has been locked up since December 2020 after being named as one of 18 Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation gang members in the shattering RICO case.