Rapper Silento is headed to prison for 30 years after pleading guilty but mentally ill to shooting his cousin in 2021, and leaving him to die in the street.
The DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office in Georgia announced the sentence in a press release on Wednesday, June 11.
The DA’s office said the 27-year-old rapper, born Ricky Lamar Hawk, pleaded guilty today to voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and concealing the death of another person, in connection with the killing of Frederick Rooks III.
Rooks, 34, was fatally shot in Panthersville, Georgia on Jan. 21, 2021.
Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson presided over the plea hearing and immediately sentenced the music star. Following the sentencing, Silento’s PR manager Chanel Hudson-O’Connor released a statement from the rapper.
“I can’t reverse time, but I can serve the time I’ve been given lawfully, and strive to positively contribute to whatever my new environment may be,” the statement read.
Related: ‘Whip/Nae Nae’ Rapper Silento Charged With Assault in Attempted Hatchet Attack
Police responded to a report of a person shot at the intersection of Deep Shoals Circle and Corners Crossing at 3:37 a.m. When officers arrived, Rooks was lying in the street after being shot multiple times.
The DA’s office said officers found ten bullet casings near the victim’s body. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Security cameras in the area recorded a white BMW SUV fleeing at a high rate of speed minutes after the shots rang out.
A family member of Rooks told officers he was last seen with his cousin, Ricky Hawk, who picked him up in a white BMW SUV.
Hawk was taken into custody days later. Authorities said he admitted shooting Rooks.
Ballistics tests matched bullet casings recovered from the scene of the shooting to a gun Hawk had at the time of his arrest, the DA’s office said.
Additionally, GPS data retrieved from his white BMW SUV placed the vehicle at the scene of the killing.
Silento inspired a dance craze with his 2015 single “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae).” The music video has since been viewed more than 1.9 billion times on YouTube.
But the rapper has had multiple brushes with the law since then, including here in California.
Back in 2020, Urban Hollywood 411 reported he landed on the LAPD’s radar after allegedly trying to attack two strangers with a hatchet in the Valley Village section of L.A.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged him with two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
“Hawk reportedly walked into an unlocked stranger’s home in Valley Village and attempted to strike the two people in the home with a hatchet before one of them managed to disarm him,” prosecutors said at the time.
He was alleged to have committed that crime while out on bail for a domestic violence incident 50 miles away in Santa Ana. He was booked there on suspicion of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant.
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