Rapper Mystikal pleads not guilty to rape, robbery, abuse, drug possession charges

Grammy-nominated rapper, Mystikal has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of raping and choking a woman at his home in Louisiana, as well as possessing several drugs.

The 51-year-old performer, whose real name is Michael Tyler, is innocent of all charges, lawyer Joel Pearce said after the Monday hearing in Ascension Parish Court in Gonzales, Louisiana, about 15 miles from Baton Rouge.

His charges include first-degree rape (for which he’d be imprisoned for life) as well as simple criminal damage to property, false imprisonment, domestic abuse battery by strangulation, simple robbery, possession of heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, and Xanax, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The two indictments were read aloud in court, though Pearce told the AP he hasn’t gotten his hands on copies. “My client doesn’t even do drugs, so he has absolutely no idea what they were talking about,” the attorney told the outlet of the 51-year-old rapper, whose real name is Michael Tyler.

Pearce also claimed he doesn’t know what Mystikal’s accuser is accusing him of damaging, though AP reported that the charge refers to her broken Apple Watch band.

Regarding Mystikal’s upcoming Oct. 17 hearing, Pearce said bond may be a point of conversation. He also detailed that prosecutors apparently plan to discuss the rapper’s 2003 guilty plea to sexual battery and extortion.

At the time, Mystikal was charged with aggravated rape and accused of coercing his hairstylist into engaging in filmed sex acts with himself and two bodyguards. The Tarantula artist was later sentenced to six years in federal prison, according to BBC News. He was released in 2010 and forced to register as a sex offender in Louisiana.

Mystikal was also indicted in 2017 on separate rape and kidnapping charges and spent 18 months in jail before being released on a $3 million bond, according to the AP. The charges against him were dropped after a second grand jury declined to bring an indictment. 

“People keep saying it’s his third time to be charged [with rape],” His attorney told AP on Monday, noting that Mystikal admitted guilt to a slighter charge in Baton Rouge. “And in Caddo Parish, after a grand jury indicted him, they un-indicted him.”