The rapper, whose real name is Fontrell Antonio Baines, 33, has agreed to plead guilty to federal fraud and firearms charges after he bragged in a YouTube music video that he got rich by defrauding the COVID-19 unemployment fund, prosecutors announced on Wednesday. He will face a maximum of 30 years behind bars for one count of mail fraud and one count of illegal possession of firearms and ammunition when he pleads guilty in a Los Angeles court, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a news bulletin. The Memphis rapper admitted to making 92 false claims using associate names totaling $1.2 million through the California Department of Employment Development. The not-so-hidden musician then made a music video for a song called “EDD,” where he held a stack of EDD envelopes that apparently contained government debit cards. “Unemployment is so sweet. We had 1.5 earth this week,” Baines raps in the video. Another voice adds, “You have to sell cocaine, I can just file a claim.” Baines admitted in his plea that between July and September 2020, he received unemployment insurance money made available by the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance provisions of the federal CARES Act. He allegedly used addresses in Beverly Hills and Koreatown, where he could then grab the debit cards, from which he would later withdraw cash. As part of his plea, he agreed to forfeit $57,750 seized by police when he was arrested in October 2020. He was arrested at a Hollywood Hills residence with a semi-automatic handgun and 14 rounds of ammunition – which he was barred from possessing because of previous felony convictions, the US attorney’s office said. Baines has been in jail since his arrest in 2020, prosecutors said.
