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Irv "Gotti" trial opens today
As hip-hop mogul stands accused of laundering $1 million in drug money through his Murder Inc. record label, the gangsta image portrayed by many rap stars goes on trial right along with him.
The trial of Irv "Gotti" Lorenzo and his brother Christopher should provide a look inside the gangsta image that has helped make it the dominant genre in music.
Lorenzo, the 34-year-old founder of the Murder Inc. record label that released megahit records from rapper Ja Rule and singer Ashanti, will stand trial starting today in a New York City courtroom.
Having nicknamed himself "Gotti" after the notorious Gambino crime family, Lorenzo and his brother are charged with laundering $1 million in illegal drug profits through the Murder Inc. label. Prosecutors claim the Lorenzos helped convicted crack kingpin Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, currently in jail on gun possession charges, launder money through the label.
According to an indictment against the men, prosecutors claim that McGriff and his associates laundered drug money through Murder Inc. by delivering cash to the Lorenzos in duffel bags. The Lorenzos then allegedly wrote McGriff checks in return and received McGriff's "protection."
Prosecutors contend that McGriff's protection may have resulted in an attempted assassination of rapper 50 Cent in May 2000 amid the rapper's ongoing war of words with Ja Rule. McGriff allegedly ordered the shooting.
The trial appears to hinge on the jury's perception of whether Lorenzo's well-crafted gangsta image--he often donned ivory suits and fedoras--was reality or just mere hype to sell records.
Prosecutors contend it was more than hype.
"They don't call it gangster rap for nothing," FBI Special Agent Fred Snellings said in announcing the indictments in late January. "It's pretty clear that the image isn't accidental."
But defense attorneys will likely argue that the image is just that.
"The prosecutors have been taken in by the same gangster images Murder Inc. used to sell records to 13-year-old kids," defense attorney Gerald Lefcourt told the Los Angeles Times. "Murder Inc. did nothing wrong."
Irv Lorenzo began his rise to the top of the hip-hop game in the mid-1990s after helping to launch the careers of rappers Jay Z and DMX for Def Jam Records, a division of Universal Music Group.
Universal awarded "Gotti" with $3 million to start his own label in 1999. He called it Murder Inc.
Murder Inc. then became a fast-emerging label, with Ja Rule becoming the rap industry's most commercially successful artist during the early 2000s.
After three hit records and an expanding media empire, Ja Rule's career began to implode when he became a verbal target of 50 Cent, who began hurling numerous verbal darts his way. It is this conflict that prosecutors will likely explore to connect the Lorenzos with McGriff's alleged order to shoot 50 Cent.
The Lorenzos are free on $1 million bail. A judge agreed earlier this year to separate the trials of the Lorenzos and McGriff. The case against the Lorenzos also suffered setbacks when two key prosecution witnesses decided not to cooperate with the government and reportedly will not testify.
Universal Music severed its relationship with Murder Inc., which had changed its name to The Inc. in 2004, soon after the indictments were announced.
If convicted, the Lorenzos face up to 20 years in prison.
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