Mystikal Denied Bond Over Rape, False Imprisonment Charges

2022-08-04T18:03:36+00:00August 4th, 2022|

Mystikal was denied bond by a Louisiana judge on Tuesday (Aug. 2) in the wake of the rapper’s arrest over the weekend on allegations that he beat and raped a woman and held her against her will at his Baton Rouge-area home on July 31. According to The Advocate, State District Judge Steven Tureau ruled that the weight of the evidence against the 51-year-old rapper born Michael Lawrence Tyler, as well as his past legal history and the victim’s fears, were enough to hold the “Shake It Fast” rapper in jail until trial.

Tyler is accused of attacking the woman during an “erratic and violent” encounter at his home on Saturday during which he allegedly took her car keys and held the unnamed woman against her will; an arrest warrant noted that the rapper also allegedly prayed with the woman to remove her “bad spirits.”

The Advocate reported that Tyler’s defense attorney, Roy Maughan Jr., had asked for $250,000 in bail and objected to the judge’s ruling afterward, but said an appeal is unlikely based on Tureau’s detailed analysis; Maughan has maintained that his client is innocent.

The rapper was booked on Sunday on first-degree rape, simple robbery, felony domestic abuse battery by strangulation, criminal damage to property and five drug counts added following a search of his home. Tyler is a lifetime registered sex offender who served 6 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual battery and extortion in 2003; in Dec. 2020 prosecutors in northwest Louisiana dropped rape and kidnapping charges that had kept Tyler in jail for 18 months citing a lack of evidence.

The site noted that defendants in Louisiana generally have a right to bail, but in serious violent cases judges have leeway to hold pre-trial suspects without bail if they deem them a flight right or continuing threat to a victim or the community. Prosecutors reportedly argued that based on their analysis Tyler has a high chance of committing another similar crime.

Tyler has had several other arrests since the mid-1990s — including ones for marijuana possession, misdemeanor domestic violence and first-degree rape — none of which led to conviction. The rapper’s attorney tried unsuccessfully to point out that aside from the 2003 plea, Tyler has never been convicted of another crime, has not missed a court date in any of those cases and because of his celebrity it would be difficult for him to evade authorities if he took flight.

Maughan also reportedly noted that a sheriff’s detective acknowledged in testimony that Tyler’s accuser had been in a longstanding relationship with the MC since the late 1990s and had never before accused him of attacking her. Sheriff’s Detective Garrett Keith testified on Tuesday that the woman went to Tyler’s home around 8 p.m. Saturday to discuss alleged financial commitments he’d made to her and she reported that the rapper’s demeanor changed “abruptly’ after returned from the bathroom.

At that point, he allegedly accused her of stealing cash, choked her and pulled out her hair, later apologizing, praying and sprinkling rubbing alcohol on her to cleanse her of “bad spirits” before raping her, Keith said.

The rapper is best known for his 2000 hit “Shake Ya Ass” and his featured credits on songs such as the chart-topping 2001 hit Stutter and Ludacris’s 2002 “Move Bitch.” Mystikal also has featured in several movies, including 13 Dead Men, Makin’ Baby, My Side Piece, Mississippi Turntup, Mac & Devin Go to High School, and more.

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