Rapper Convicted of Rape: 'I Deserve the Max'

Rapper Mystikal will spend two decades in a Louisiana prison after a judge handed down a 20-year sentence for third-degree rape on Tuesday. The Grammy-nominated 53-year-old, born Michael Tyler, was arrested in 2022 after a woman told authorities he punched and choked her, ripped out her braids, and raped her, per the Los Angeles Times. Tyler pleaded guilty in March, reducing the charge from first-degree rape—which in Louisiana can carry a life sentence—to third-degree rape, punishable by up to 25 years without parole or probation.

The victim asked the court to impose the maximum punishment. "If I did that to you, I deserve the max sentence," Tyler told her before sentencing, which was carried out after a last-minute bid by his attorney to withdraw the guilty plea was rejected. The lawyer claimed Tyler's decision was made "under significant emotional distress" and "substantial pressure," WBRZ reports. The "Danger" rapper, who rose to fame in the late 1990s on Master P's No Limit Records, previously served six years for a 2003 sexual battery conviction and was accused of rape and kidnapping in 2016, though charges were dropped in 2020 after a second grand jury declined to indict.