Man pleads guilty to robbery-killing of rapper Pop Smoke

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — One of four men charged in the killing of rapper Pop Smoke during a robbery at a Hollywood Hills mansion pleaded guilty Thursday to voluntary manslaughter.

The 20-year-old man, who was 17 when the killing occurred, also pleaded guilty in Inglewood juvenile court to home invasion robbery. He was sentenced to four years and two months in a juvenile facility.

The judge has barred the public use of his name because he was a minor at the time of the shooting.

The 20-year-old New York rapper, whose legal name is Bashar Barakah Jackson, was killed on Feb. 19, 2020, at a rented home where he was staying while on a four-day trip to Los Angeles. A 911 call from a friend of someone in the house reported armed intruders inside the home, police said.

The robbers knew the address because a day earlier, Jackson had posted a photograph on social media of a gift bag he had received and the address was on a label, authorities said.

Jackson was in the shower when masked robbers confronted him. During a struggle, one attacker, who was 15, pistol-whipped the rapper and shot him three times in the back, according to court testimony cited by the Los Angeles Times.

The attackers stole Jackson’s diamond-studded Rolex watch and sold it for $2,000, a detective testified.

The teenager, whose name also is being withheld, was charged in the case along with Corey Walker, who was 19 at the time, and Keandre Rodgers, who was then 18. They are accused of murder during the commission of a robbery and burglary.

Pop Smoke arrived on the rap scene in 2018 and broke out with “Welcome to the Party” a gangsta anthem with boasts about shootings, killings and drugs that became a huge sensation, and prompted Nicki Minaj to drop a verse on a remix.

He had several other hits, including the album “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon,” which was released posthumously.

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