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Grammy Nominee Sentenced for Rape: ‘I Deserve the Max’

The “Danger” rapper, who pleaded guilty to third-degree rape, told his victim in court that he deserved the punishment.

Rapper Mystikal will spend the next 20 years in a Louisiana prison cell after a third-degree rape conviction. The Grammy-nominated performer, 55, born Michael Tyler, was arrested in 2022 after the injured woman named him to detectives at the hospital. In court on Tuesday, she recounted being beaten, choked, and assaulted, and pressed the judge for the toughest possible term. “If I did that to you, I deserve the max sentence,” the rapper replied. His third-degree conviction carries a maximum sentence of 25 years and bars early release. A March plea deal shrank an original first-degree count, which carries a life term. Days before the hearing, his lawyer’s move to scrap the plea collapsed. His original charge slate spanned first-degree rape, robbery, strangulation, and false imprisonment. The 2022 assault unfolded at his home in Prairieville, roughly 18 miles outside Baton Rouge. It is not Tyler’s first prison term for a sex crime; he was imprisoned for six years over a 2003 sexual battery plea and remains on the sex-offender registry.