Mystikal.
Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for 2017 ESSENCE Festival.
Mystikal has been indicted on a charge of first-degree rape in Louisiana, Rolling Stone reports. If found guilty he faces life in jail under state law. The charges follows an alleged incident on July 30 of this year involving the rapper, real name Michael Tyler, and a woman who claims he held her against her will and sexually assaulted her at his Baton Rouge home.
In addition to the rape charge, Tyler will also face nine additional criminal counts including criminal damage to property, false imprisonment, domestic abuse battery by strangulation, robbery, and several drug-related offenses, per The New Orleans Advocate.
51-year-old Tyler is being held without bail at the Ascension Parish Prison. "It’s an indictment," Tyler’s attorney Joel Pearce told reporters on Wednesday. “It means nothing. We look forward to our day in court.”
The latest charge is the third time Tyler has been accused of a sex crime in the past two decades. In 2003 he pleaded guilty to sexual battery and extortion against his hairdresser and spent six years in prison. Tyler was accused of rape in August 2017 at a Lousiana casino and spent 18 months in prison before posting bond. The charges were dropped in December 2020 after "additional evidence and information were discovered" and submitted to a second grand jury, which declined to prosecute.
The FADER has reached out to Mystikal's representative for more information.
