Tennessee rapper Nuke Bizzle, whose real name is Fontrell Antonio Baines, agreed to plead guilty to federal fraud and firearms charges after he was seen bragging in a YouTube music video saying he got rich by ripping off the COVID-19 unemployment fund, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Baines, 33, is facing a maximum of thirty years in jail on one count of mail fraud and one count of unlawful firearm and ammunition possession, authorities said in a news release.
The Memphis musician confessed to making ninety-two false claims using collaborators’ names that totaled $1.2 million through the California Employment Development Department. The rapper subsequently made a music video for a song called “EDD” where he held up a stack of EDD envelopes that apparently contain government debit cards.
“Unemployment so sweet. We had 1.5 land this week,” Baines raps in the video. Another voice adds, “You gotta sell cocaine, I can just file a claim.”
In his plea, Baines admitted that between July and September of 2020, he obtained unemployment insurance money allocated 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’d later withdraw cash.
As part of his plea, Baines agreed to forfeit $57,750 that was seized by police officers when he was apprehended in October 2020.
Baines was busted at a residence in Hollywood Hills, a residential neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, with a semi-automatic pistol and 14 rounds of ammo – which he was barred from possessing because of previous felony convictions, the US attorney’s office said.
Baines has been in jail since his 2020 arrest, prosecutors said.
