ADVERTISMENT

The hidden story that binds African and Mexican Americans in a shared history few knew about until now! - GLOBAL AFRICAN DIASPORA

Rapper seeks

bail in murder-

for-hire case

The judge indicated the $4.5 million bond package the rapper posed may not be enough given his wealth

By EDVARD PATTERSON

Contributing Writer

LOS ANGELES (CN) — Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil Durk tried to persuade a federal judge to let him out on bail while he awaits trial on charges that he put a bounty on a rival rapper, resulting in an August 2022 shooting in Los Angeles in which a cousin of his rival was killed.

U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald didn't issue a ruling at a hearing June 2 in downtown LA, where a large contingent of friends and family of Durk Banks, as he's legally named, packed the courtroom.

While the judge noted that the $4.5 million bail package Banks has offered to put up was a large amount of money, it wasn't going to be enough to convince him that the 32-year-old rapper from Chicago would show up for trial, given his presumptive net worth.

On the other hand, Fitzgerald indicated that he wasn't persuaded either that the prosecution had provided compelling evidence of Banks' involvement in the murder-for-hire scheme that necessitated him to remain jailed pending trial.

"While it's possible and plausible that defendant pulled the strings, at some point, you're going to have to come up with some proof that he did," the judge said. "It might also be possible that there were some hotheaded people who wanted to impress him."

Banks was arrested last October in Florida on charges that he orchestrated the attempted 2022 revenge killing of rapper Quando Rondo at an LA gas station, a shooting that resulted in the death of Quando Rondo's cousin.

He is charged with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire in the slaying of Saviay'a Robinson, 24, who was gunned down on Aug. 19, 2022.

Five members of Bank's Chicago-based rap collective, “Only the Family" or OTF, have also been charged. Robinson's mother had flown to LA from Savannah, GA, to address the court at the June 1 hearing.

"I'm scared to be here," she said in a tearful address. "I just want you to know that Saviay'a had a family, too."

Banks in April asked for the superseding indictment against him to be dismissed because, he claimed, the government had falsely told the grand jury that he had celebrated the revenge killing in a rap track recorded after the shooting of Quando Rondo's cousin.

The lyrics in question, Banks argued, were recorded seven months before the shooting.

The government filed a second superseding indictment shortly afterward that left out the disputed rap lyrics and mooted Banks' bid to get the charges dismissed.

Nevertheless, his attorneys argued at Monday's hearing that they should have access to the grand jury testimony of the witness, presumably an FBI agent, who provided the incorrect information.

"It was reckless," said Christy O'Connor, one of Banks' attorneys. "The prosecutors didn't do their homework."

The judge also took this request under submission.

The prosecution cautioned him not to release grand jury testimony because it might endanger cooperating witnesses who provided evidence against Banks.

Banks won a Grammy in 2024 for Best Melodic Rap for “All My Life,” which featured J. Cole. He has been nominated three times and was a featured performer on Drake's “Laugh Now Cry Later.”

Categories / Criminal, Entertainment

Follow @edpettersson

Categories / Criminal, Entertainmen

Lil' Durk

Compton High, the oldest of four high schools in Compton, has undergone a sparkling $200 million reconstruction—sporting a state-of-the-art performing arts center, and a near Olympic-size swimming pool—was unveiled in a ribbon-cutting ceremony in May.

New Compton High School-performing arts center unveils

Ribbon-cutting ceremony heralds the start of a new academic era

COMPTON—After years of construction, Compton High School, the long-standing prep school in Compton, was reborn May 21 as one of the most high-tech endowed prep schools in America. at a staggering cost of $200 million.

Rap icon and producer Dr. Dre, who attended the ribbon cutting, donated $10 million to the performing arts center component of the project, which cost a staggering $200 million.

Dre, an ex-Compton resident, whose birth name is Andre Young, did not attend Compton High, but is grafted into Compton lore through the popularity of the rap music genre, and having produced the acclaimed hit film, Boyz-in-the-Hood, written by rap luminary Ice Cube, and rapped by the late Eazy-E., two members of rap royalty N-W-A, along with DJ Yella, and MC Ren.

The venerable high school, now 129 years old, opened in 1896 as Compton Union High School and was later re-established as Compton Senior High School in the 1950s.

The new 31-acre campus, will serve more than 1,800 students and feature a 140,639-square-foot academic building, a 36,534-square-foot gymnasium, a half-size Olympic pool and enhanced landscaping with California native plants, officials said.

Principal Larry Natividad overflowed with pride.

"It absolutely takes my breath away," he said "It shows the love and the care that the architects, and the great city of Compton, provided."

Natividad has plenty reason to be proud. The high school is a 21st century marvel of engineering.

According to lead architect Alenoush Aghajanians, "The classrooms have connectivity to internet, so they can do online learning through all the spaces. There is a lot of interconnectivity from the performing arts center.

"When they perform on the stage, they can record it from any of the recording studios in the building," said Aghajanians.

The project was funded through the district's bond measure approved in 2015. The city broke ground on the school in 2021.

Compton officials said given that the graduation rate at Compton High stands at an impressive 95 percent, a new school simply compliments the academic success of the students.

Over the years, the high school has been a springboard of tremendous success for its graduates.

Among the many stellar achievers are Hollywood luminaries, professional athletes, accomplished business professionals—names the reader would readily recognize—too many to name here.

The new campus will began educating a new generation of students in August.

LONG BEACH
CITY COLLEGE

CLICK LOGO

Click Logo

Ex-LA Dodger interpreter for Shohei Ohtani gets 57 months in prison for $17 million theft

SANTA ANA, Calif. — On Feb. 6, 2025, Ippei Mizuhara, a former Japanese-language interpreter was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for illegally — and without authorization — transferring nearly $17 million from the bank account of Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani.

Mizuhara intended to pay off his own substantial gambling debts incurred with an illegal bookmaking operation and for signing a false tax return, following a joint Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), IRS Criminal Investigation probe.

Mizuahara was sentenced by United States District Judge John W. Holcomb, who also ordered him to pay $16,975,010 in restitution to Ohtani and $1,149,400 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Mizuhara pleaded guilty in June 2024 to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return.

“Mr. Mizuhara is yet another example of how those in a position of trust can take advantage of a relationship and defraud the government,” said HSI Los Angeles acting Special Agent in Charge John Pasciucco.

“The HSI-led El Camino Real Financial Crimes Task Force will leverage all partnerships to locate and bring to justice those who commit financial crimes, especially those who think they can hide in plain sight,” Pasciucco said.

Mizuhara was the translator and de facto manager of MLB star Shohei Ohtani. As part of his job duties, Mizuhara regularly interacted with Ohtani’s sports agents and financial advisors — who did not speak Japanese — on behalf of Ohtani, who did not speak English.

Although Mizuhara was an employee of the Los Angeles Angels MLB team, for whom Ohtani played from 2018 to 2023, and, later, the Los Angeles Dodgers, for whom Ohtani has played since 2024, Ohtani paid him separately for the additional work of driving him to meetings and interpreting for non-baseball-related activities.

In March 2018, Mizuhara accompanied Ohtani to a bank in Phoenix to help him open a bank account to deposit his MLB salary. Inside the bank branch, Mizuhara interpreted for Ohtani when the bank employee provided Ohtani the login information for this bank account.😊

Beginning in September 2021, Mizuhara began placing sports bets with an illegal bookmaker. Shortly thereafter, Mizuhara began to lose bets and quickly became indebted to the bookmaker. Unable to pay his gambling debts, Mizuhara orchestrated a scheme to deceive and cheat the bank to fraudulently obtain money from the account.

From no later than November 2021 to March 2024, Mizuhara used Ohtani’s password to successfully sign into the bank account and then changed the account’s security protocols without Ohtani’s knowledge or permission.

Specifically, Mizuhara changed the registered email address and telephone number on the account so bank employees would call him — not Ohtani — when attempting to verify wire transfers from the account.

Mizuhara impersonated Ohtani, using his personal identifying information to deceive the bank’s employees into authorizing wire transfers from the bank account. In total, Mizuhara called the bank and impersonated Ohtani on approximately 24 occasions.

In addition, in September 2023, Mizuhara needed $60,000 worth of dental work and Ohtani agreed to pay for it via a check drawn on a business account at a different bank. However, Mizuhara provided his dentist Ohtani’s debit card number for the bank account Ohtani had opened in Phoenix, charged $60,000 to that account, then deposited the $60,000 check into Mizuhara’s personal bank account.

From January 2024 to March 2024, Mizuhara purchased approximately $325,000 worth of baseball cards from online resellers such as eBay from Ohtani’s bank account with the intent to resell them later and for his own personal benefit.

When Ohtani’s sports agent and financial advisors asked Mizuhara for access to the bank account, Mizuhara lied and said Ohtani did not want them to access the account because it was private. In fact, Mizuhara did not want them to know that he had been stealing from Ohtani and had fraudulently obtained more than $16,975,010 from him.

In February 2024, he willfully made and subscribed to a false individual federal income tax return for the tax year 2022. On that tax return, Mizuhara falsely claimed that his total taxable income for that year was $136,865 when in fact he knew the amount was substantially higher and he knowingly failed to report additional income of $4.1 million.

The HSI Los Angeles El Camino Real Financial Crimes Task Force conducted this investigation collaboratively with the IRS Criminal Investigation Division

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Click Episodes,

catch up where you left off

A letter to Kendrick Lamar &

Drake

Drake (Left) and Kendrick Lamar

End the Bombast

,What do you think about the supercilious feud of these two mega rap stars? As a rule, we don't step into public spats so frivolous and disdainful as this one, but it's time a voice of reason straddled the bear scat, and said "hold up!" to the two. — the editor

Drake and Kendrick, we are going to shine a light on your excrement for only a few moments to register our disdain for the public regurgitation between two intelligent men who aren't demonstrating very much intelligence and wisdom at this time.

Why not sheath your verbal sabers, declare peace, and apologize like mature men. There's more than enough love, respect and adoration to go around ad infinitum for the both of you. Black Americans are surrounded by enough enemies who seek our annihiilation, as it is. Must we war within our very gates?

The optics of your callous disregard for one another speak volumes. If you have no admiration for one another, why should any other race of people? A people with scorn for their own are reprobate. Without love you have nothing, my brothers.

Who is really behind this skirmish — this contrived mishmash? The record company? If so, that's just absurd; you both operate under the aegis of Universal. That makes you pawns in a modern example of "Willie Lynch-ism." Somebody is willing to hand you untold wealth, while augmenting a climate of strife, appealing to separate fan bases, contributing only to social and moral turpitude in the community ultimately defiling the Black race. Write this in one of your future songs! This makes you hypocritical "grumps," not griots.

Drake and Kendrick — grow up! Extinguish your "scorched brother" campaigns. With your music gifts, bring the race together. Show your hundreds of millions of fans the world over a "lighted path."

You are more famous than ninety-nine percent of the inhabitants of Earth—richer than ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all homo sapiens ... . Why isn't this enough? Must you be king too? Why do you verbally eviscerate one another with public ridicule? Freedom to be free from the brainwashing of Willie Lynch is in order. Slavery is over. We are free to be free. Martin said it —"LET FREEDOM RING!"

Opt for peace. End this childishness!

That would best best for all!

REPARATIONS: 40 ACRES?

Click

LATEST

Trump, Musk enriching selves

criminally through Stablecoins

GOP-licans pass unstable act allowing criminal ploy
METROPOLIS NEWS SERVICE

Rep, Maxine Waters

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Committee Republicans passed a dangerous bill, Wednesday that would empower President Trump, his family, insiders, and billionaires like Elon Musk to continue exploiting the power of the Presidency to establish multiple crypto schemes, including a stablecoin, to enrich themselves and his family.

The Republican bill, misleadingly titled the “STABLE Act,” fails to provide needed protections for our nation’s consumers and if signed into law, threatens to destabilize the economy. It also disregards years of bipartisan work carried out by the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, and former Republican Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-NC to establish a robust federal framework to oversee the cryptocurrency.

"Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a “stable” value if they are properly backed by strong reserves, like the U.S. dollar," said Waters. Because of their stable value, hence the name, stablecoins are often used to enter or exit the crypto ecosystem and trade between crypto like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

"While a few states have established or are establishing a state framework, there isn’t a federal framework to regulate stablecoin issuers or Federal Reserve authority over the digital wallets where users hold their coins, leaving consumers at risk of fraud at the hands of bad actors. With stablecoin usage growing, their use could also have implications on the broader economy and U.S. national security, if not regulated properly," Waters said.

During Wednesday’s 13-hour Committee markup which ended just before midnight, Waters led Committee Democrats, including Representatives Nydia M. Velázquez, Brad Sherman, David Scott, Stephen F. Lynch, Al Green, Bill Foster, Sean Casten, Rashida Tlaib, Sylvia Garcia, and Nikema Williams in sounding the alarm on the dangers of the Republican bill, which threatens to:

Hand President Trump power to write his own rules and defraud investors with his own coin. Since last Congress, President Trump has come into office and leveraged the power of the Presidency to establish multiple crypto schemes to enrich himself and his family. From a fraudulent memecoin – which collectively lost his investors $2 billion while he and his family pocketed $350 million – to a crypto reserve that boosts the price of crypto held by him and his cabinet – to, most recently, brazenly launching his own stablecoin, through World Liberty Financial.
The Trump administration has also begun exploring the incorporation of stablecoins in the payment of government assistance and grants. This bill does not include any language to block Trump from further enriching himself through his own stablecoin.
Gives Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos ability to profit from crypto schemes. The bill undermines the clear separation between banking and commerce which was established to prevent any one firm from gaining too much power in the economy. Unfortunately, this bill paves the way for Facebook to revive its failed stablecoin project, and it grants commercial companies – including Big Tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, and X – the ability to get in the business of banking and launch their own stablecoins, posing significant risks to consumers.
Protections for consumers are woefully inadequate. This bill wipes out all the critical consumer protections included in the Waters-McHenry bill designed to ensure consumers can hold payment stablecoins confidently. It lacks proper regulation, oversight, and accountability for entities that harm consumers. The GOP bill also stipulates that the Federal Reserve has no authority over state regulated digital wallets that consumers use to hold their stablecoins, leaving American consumers who use those wallets vulnerable. And if a stablecoin issuer fails, the bill does nothing to set up a resolution to protect consumers.
Puts national security on the back burner. The bill lacks clear criminal penalties and enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance with regulations and prevent illicit activities, like money laundering or terrorism financing. There’s also a glaring oversight gap that paves the way for bad actors to exploit the system. The bill also fails to address a loophole that allows firms like Tether that can pose risks to national security to avoid U.S. regulation and oversight by issuing their stablecoins offshore but selling into the U.S. without strong enough penalty.

Committee Democrats offered more than 30 amendments in response to these concerns, sparking several hours of debate that stretched well into the night. Republicans requested combining the amendment votes on this bill to fast track the process so they could go home, but Democrats declined – forcing Republicans to cast a vote on every single amendment.

It wasn’t only Democrats that offered amendments in response to concerns – staunch crypto supporter and Republican Congressman Warren Davidson, R-OH, also offered an amendment and ultimately sided with Democrats to vote “no” on this bill.

ALL amendments were denied by Committee Republicans

Republicans denied Democratic amendments designed to:

Combat Trump’s Glaring Conflicts of Interest:

"Ensure stablecoin issuers controlled by the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, and relevant family members do not review rules or final text before it is issued," said Waters.
"Prohibit any stablecoin issued by a company owned, affiliated or controlled by an employee of the U.S. government or an officer, member, or their family members from being required to be used to conduct transactions with the government," said Waters.
"Provide that if you are the President, a Cabinet member, or a special government employee (e.g. Elon Musk) and have over $10 million invested in any stable coin or cryptocurrency. you must disclose your purchases or sales, says Rep.Sherman.
"Prohibit the President, Vice President, and other public officials, from issuing, sponsoring or promoting a stablecoin," says (Rep. Liccardo.

Uphold Consumer Protection:

Explicitly affirm the authority of the CFPB with respect to stablecoin issuers and customers who own stablecoins. (Rep. Tlaib)
Require stablecoins to be issued only on permissioned blockchains. (Rep. Lynch)
Limit the activities of a stablecoin issuer to only perform activities that directly related to issuing stablecoins, and not other activities, like lending. (Rep. Lynch)
Require stablecoin issuers with more than $1 billion in assets to prepare an annual financial statement, comparable with requirements for FDIC-insured banks. (Rep. Casten)
Require stablecoin regulators to adopt an anti-deceptive practices and anti-manipulation rule that is consistent with the CFTC rules required by Dodd-Frank. (Rep. Casten)
Prohibit special government employees from having an ownership interest in a payment stablecoin issuer. (Rep. Tlaib)
Require robust Federal oversight over all state-licensed payment stablecoin issuers, an approach that is similar to the existing dual banking regulatory framework and that is provided by the bipartisan Waters-McHenry stablecoin bill. (Rep. Lynch)
Remove a provision that applications are automatically deemed approved if the primary federal regulator fails to render a decision of approval or denial within 120 days. (Rep. Lynch)
Prohibit a payment stablecoin issuer tying the offering or selling of payment stablecoins with a condition that the purchaser obtain additional products or services. (Rep. Garcia)
Allow tokenization of reserves of any eligible reserve assets. (Rep. Williams)
Prohibit crypto exchanges and any affiliated individuals from paying any type of remuneration (e.g., interest or yield) to holders of stablecoins based on their ownership of those stablecoins. (Rep. Lynch)

Prohibit Bailouts and Promote Financial Stability:

Make clear that no Federal agency may bail out an issuer of a stablecoin to prevent the failure or bankruptcy of such issuer, including using Federal Reserve liquidity facilities and the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund. (Rep. Sherman)
Prohibits stablecoin issuers from being bailed out through a Federal Reserve emergency lending facility or Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund. (Rep. Foster)
Require that any stablecoin issuer that receives any emergency assistance shall be prohibited from issuing new stablecoins for a period of one year or until Treasury conducts a full review of the soundness of the issuer and approves the resumption of such sales. (Rep. Lynch)
Prohibit the use of uninsured deposits to be reserves for stablecoins, ensuring they would have to be insured, and eliminate provisions allowing foreign banks that do not operate in the U.S. from holding U.S. stablecoin reserves. (Rep. Casten)
Prohibit the use of uninsured deposits to be reserves for stablecoins, ensuring they would have to be insured to qualify. (Rep. Foster)
Require the Treasury to include in the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (FSOC) annual reports to Congress, a section that discusses the status of the threat payment stablecoins pose to the financial stability of the United States. (Rep. Velázquez)

Protect National Security:

Apply Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) requirements to all wallets, including unhosted wallets, requiring know-your-customer (KYC) and other BSA legal and regulatory requirements. (Rep. Sherman)
Direct Treasury to authorize appropriate regulation for cryptocurrency mixers. (Rep. Sherman)
Direct Treasury consulting with DOJ to propose a rule that outlines issuers would use “freeze on chain” to comply with sanctions and other laws. (Rep. Casten)
Prohibit stablecoins from being issued if they are pegged to a national currency of a hostile foreign power. (Rep. Lynch)
Require payment stablecoin issuers have the capacity to “freeze on chain” to comply with sanctions and other laws. (Rep. Foster)
Develop a path by which an individual wallet holder could choose to have their personal wallet verified as compliant with the Bank Secrecy Act. (Rep. Foster)
Prohibit all foreign-issued stablecoins from being offered or utilized in the U.S., absent registration. (Rep. Lynch)