Dark Lo has denied he snitched to get some charges dropped, revealing instead that he’d pleaded out his case to get a chance at seeing some sign of freedom.
The Philadelphia rapper (real name Charles Salley) was sentenced to seven years of federal prison, one year of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, after he pleaded guilty to witness intimidation for writing a threatening letter to a man and his girlfriend who were witnesses against AR-Ab (real name Abdul West).
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According to a statement released by the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the O.B.H. leader — who was ultimately sentenced to 45 years in federal prison — turned the record label into a sizable North Philly drug trafficking operation implicated in several murders.
But in an interview with Report Card Radio which dropped on Wednesday (October 18), the “Missing Summers” rapper confessed that he’d taken the plea deal — without snitching — because he was looking at serious time behind bars.
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“They say, ‘career criminal,’ and in there, ‘career criminal’ means an automatic 15 years,” he said. “That’s why I took the deal. Like they said, they’re gonna drop the gun charge, and keep the witness tampering I had.”
He continued: “I had to hop on that, you know what I’m sayin’? I could just plead out to this ‘intimidating a witness’? Like, alright. Y’all got me.”
AR-Ab was convicted in 2019 for turning the OBH label into a “large-scale” North Philly drug operation linked to at least two killings and faces decades in prison. The rapper had built a large local following with his music, earning the respect of the likes of Drake, Swizz Beatz, and Birdman along the way.
In 2021, a federal judge threw the book at him. According to The Inquirer, the 38-year-old Philly rapper was sentenced to a whopping 45 years in prison for turning his Original Block Hustlaz (OBH) label into a drug trafficking ring linked to at least one murder.
Although AR-Ab’s former associate claimed the rapper ordered the 2017 killing of rival Robert Johnson, U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson insisted it wasn’t a consideration in his sentence. Baylson also insisted AR-Ab’s violent lyrics weren’t a factor in his bulky sentence either. Instead, he said the 45 years was for his history of “antisocial behavior.”
“You could have been a hero instead of a criminal,” he said. “But you became a drug dealer. You made that decision. That’s why you’re being punished.”
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With his arms crossed, AR-Ab defended his lifestyle choices, saying: “The court, the FBI agents, and the prosecutors don’t understand my culture. We don’t rap about flowers and rainbows. We’re gangsta rappers. We rap about where we grew up. So we rap about drug dealing. We rap about violence.”
