Former BadBoy artist G. Dep was convicted Tuesday of a crime that happened nearly 20 years ago. He faces a minimum of 15 years in prison.
The rapper, born Trevell Coleman, confessed to the crime in 2010 after walking into a police station. The “The Let’s Get It” star hoped to redeem himself from the crime that has haunted him for the past 20 years.
Coleman, 37, was about 19 at the time of the shooting. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance told The Associated Press Coleman “made a calculated decision to steal from, shoot, and kill an innocent person on the street” in a statement.
Coleman went to trial arguing that the victim, John Henkel, 32, may not have been the person he shot in 1993 on a Harlem corner.
Despite the conviction, Coleman’s defense attorney Anthony Ricco told AP his client “remains convinced he did the right thing by coming forward.”
In a jailhouse interview published in June 2011, Coleman spoke with Hip Hop magazine XXL regarding his crime.
“I couldn’t move on and keep trying to satisfy myself if I didn’t deal with that,” he said. ” … I didn’t know what was going to be the outcome, but that was the only way I knew to deal with it.”
Watch G. Dep’s 2001 hit “Let’s Get It” below.
