Rapper sentenced for COVID fraud after music video flaunted stacks of unemployment assistance envelopes
Nuke Bizzle embezzled approximately $705,000 via a combination of identity fraud and illicit unemployment benefits.
Tennessee rapper Fontrell Antonio Baines, a.k.a. "Nuke Bizzle," has been sentenced to 77 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and illegal firearm possession.
Baines was arrested after he bragged about obtaining fraudulent COVID-19 unemployment benefits in a YouTube music video.
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"Baines defrauded [COVID-19 relief programs] to obtain unemployment benefits administered by the EDD in the names of third parties, including identity theft victims," the Department of Justice said in a press statement.
Department of Justice building on Aug. 18, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The statement continued, "The applications for benefits also included false statements about the work histories and in-state residences of the named applicants."
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In the 2020 song called "EDD" after California's Employment Development Department, Baines says, "I done got rich off of EDD."
"I gotta shoutout to Donald Trump. / I just might swipe me a lump sum," the rapper says in one verse.
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Actual losses for the EDD and U.S. Treasury Department from Baines' scheming totaled nearly $705,000.
Las Vegas authorities initially arrested Baines in September 2020 after he was found carrying eight debit cards, seven of which were in different names.
Baines also admitted to having an illegal semi-automatic pistol with 14 rounds of ammunition at his Hollywood Hills home in 2020.
Department of Justice logo on a wall in New York, Dec. 5, 2013. (File Photo)
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"Baines also trafficked narcotics," the DOJ said. "On January 31, 2020, at Memphis International Airport. Baines attempted to check a bag containing various controlled substances, including oxycodone, promethazine with codeine, alprazolam and more than seven pounds of marijuana."
Baines has been held in federal custody since being arrested by federal officials in October 2020.