Aspiring Southern California hip-hop rapper Keley Bluez–crooner of the MySpace online wonder “(I Don't) Beg for Pussy”–has been sentenced to prison for his role in a multiyear, sophisticated, identity-theft and bank-fraud ring that stole millions of dollars from innocent victims.
In court records, Bluez is called by his real name, Kevin Leron Young, and he hoped U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter would be lenient by adding only two more years of incarceration to the 19 months he has served while awaiting punishment.
Young's story is that he comes from an extremely poor background and participated in the crime as a way to advance his singing career by endearing himself to one of the masterminds who has influence in the rap industry.
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His twisted plan might have worked, if not for federal agents who conducted wiretaps on cell phones used by Armenian gang members/prison inmates running the scheme that included bribing bank employees in Los Angeles and Orange counties to supply account details for “high-value” customers, then raiding funds.
Though Young claims he is now remorseful, what exactly happened in the April 20 sentencing hearing inside Santa Ana's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse isn't known. After U.S. marshals brought the smiling, chained defendant into the courtroom to the delight of a large group of his female relatives, Carter ordered the public and media to leave. The judge sealed the transcript of the hearing as well.
Other court records, however, show that behind closed doors, Carter sentenced Young to a term of 78 months in prison, handed him joint responsibility with other defendants for $2.5 million in restitution, and ordered him to undergo supervised federal probation for three years upon his return to society.
The 28-year-old rapper remains locked this morning inside the Santa Ana Jail and will be bused to a federal prison in coming days, according to jail records.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.