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Legal
Ex Clipse manager jailed for 32 years
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 14 January 2010
Anthony ‘Geezy’ Gonzalez, former manager of US hip hop duo Clipse, has been jailed for 32 years after pleading guilty to running a $20m drugs ring, the minimum sentence allowed under federal law.
Gonzalez was accused of running the operation out of Virginia nightclub, The Encore Lounge, and of using various companies, including music firms Soul Providers Management and Soul Providers Entertainment, to launder money.
Court papers listed a number of conversations between Gonzalez and associates recorded by the FBI. In one he boasted that he’d not been caught because he wasn’t “crazy enough” to be dealing with “hand-to-hand stuff”.
The original court documents, filed last April, claimed that those involved made “themselves out as music producers, rappers, entrepreneurs, club owners, clothing designers and other legitimate occupations in order to conceal the true source of their income”.
Fearing that they might be thought to be the rappers referred to in that statement, Clipse were quick to distance themselves from all the drugs allegations, saying that any image portrayed in their lyrics that might suggest dodginess on their part had no foundation in reality. They backed these claims up by one half of the duo, Malice, releasing a video showing his unassuming home life with his family.
