Rapper Pooh Shiesty and his father are among the suspects arrested in connection with a kidnapping and robbery involving Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane and two others at a recording studio in Dallas in January, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
Shiesty (real name: Lontrell Denell Williams, Jr.) is signed to Gucci Mane’s label, 1017 Records, and the incident was said to be an “armed takeover” in which Williams is accused of forcing one of the victims to sign a release from a recording contract at gunpoint, Ryan Raybould, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a press conference Thursday. Shiesty (pictured above, left, with Gucci Mane in 2020) signed with the label in 2020.
Williams was released from prison last October after serving three years of a 63-month sentence on gun charges; Gucci Mane celebrated his release, posting “Welcome home @poohshiesty — the MainSlime is back,” accompanied by a pair of frozen-face emojis.
Raybould said in the news conference that eight of the nine suspects in the incident have been arrested, including Williams, his father and rapper Big30, and the ninth will be in custody “soon.” The arrests took place in Dallas, Memphis in Nashville.
According to Raybould, on Jan. 10, Gucci Mane (real name: Radric Davis) and two others traveled to a business meeting at the studio arranged by Shiesty. He said that all nine defendants had traveled from Memphis to Dallas “to kidnap and rob victims who thought they were coming into town for a business meeting.”
But “instead of discussing business in a civil matter, the defendants resorted to violence and intimidation to achieve their purported business objectives,” also robbing the men of cash, Rolex watches and other jewelry.
Eight of the nine defendants were arrested on the same day FBI agents raided Pooh Shiesty’s family home near Memphis. Jail records cited by Fox 13 in Memphis show that the rapper’s father, Williams Sr., was arrested Wednesday in Memphis.
Sheisty was sentenced in 2023 for shooting a man at a Florida hotel three years earlier. He pleaded guilty to a firearms conspiracy charge to avoid a more severe sentence.
Variety will have more on the situation as it develops.
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