A Tennessee rapper who boasted in a music video about getting rich from committing unemployment fraud was arrested Friday in Los Angeles.
Fontrell Antonio Baines, 31, was arrested on three felony counts of access device fraud, aggravated identity theft and interstate transportation of stolen property. Baines faces up to 22 years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Federal prosecutors say that Baines and his co-conspirators fraudulently obtained at least 92 debit cards pre-loaded with more than $1.2 million.
The unemployment debit cards were issued in the names of third-parties, including identity theft victims, prosecutors said. They said the cards were sent to addresses to which Baines had access in Beverly Hills and the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles.
The schemers allegedly accessed more than $704,000 of that money through cash withdrawals, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.
Las Vegas police arrested Baines on Sept. 23 while he had eight debit cards in his possession, seven of which were in the names of other people, according to the affidavit.
Baines goes by the stage name Nuke Bizzle. In posts on Instagram under the accounts “nukebizzle1” and “nukebizzle23,” the rapper bragged extensively about his ability to defraud California’s Employment Development Department. Baines also posted a music video on Youtube which has amassed more than 400,000 views in which he boasts about getting “rich off of EDD.”
“Unemployment so sweet,” Baines says in the video. “We had 1.5 land this week.” A second braggadocious rapper says: “You gotta sell cocaine, I can just file a claim.”
Celebrating the dawn of a new era for the superstar Crüe, their debut Big Machine single, "Dogs of War," is now available on all platforms alongside the announcement
Moore was joined by fellow country artists and guests including Emerson Drive, Collin Raye, Austin Michael and Tyler Kinch
Don Was and The Pan-Detroit Ensemble to Perform First Show on June 1st
Upcoming Performances Include John Legend, Slash, Deadmau5, Kaskade, And More
New Single “Wranglers” Available Everywhere May 3
McCreery’s Opry induction and performance will air as a Saturday night Opry Live later this spring on the Opry Facebook and YouTube channels
Stats
Elapsed time: 0.3324 seconds
Memory useage: 2.77MB
V2.geronimo