*Rickey Smiley has weighed in on the alleged prostitution ring run by Atlanta Rapper Cash Out (real name John Michael Hakeem Gibson).
Cash Out has been indicted on multiple counts of rape, sex trafficking, and racketeering, Complex reports.
Here’s more from TMZ:
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Cash Out and five other individuals in a 41-count indictment that includes allegations of rape, aggravated sodomy, human trafficking and even holding victims at gunpoint. Cash Out stands accused of using his celebrity status and social media as means to “lure” women. According to the prosecutors, he and others used a hotel room near Fulton Industrial Boulevard and a residence in the city’s Carroll Heights neighborhood to carry out the crimes.
The rapper, known for the songs “Cashin’ Out” and “She Twerkin,” is currently incarcerated. He is facing 25-to-life in prison.
READ MORE: Famed Hip-Hop Producer Mally Mall Sentenced to 33 Months for Running Prostitution Ring
Atl rapper Cash Out facing 25 to life for r*pe & luring women into pr*stitution. The DA says Cash Out is the figurehead of an organization at the focus of a 41-count indictment handed down in late March against him & 5 others. pic.twitter.com/emVDact76I
— My Mixtapez (@mymixtapez) April 14, 2022
“We’ve rescued two so far,” said Fulton County deputy district attorney Earnell Winfrey. “Some of these women are our most vulnerable women and he lured them in, let them believe that he cared about them and that he would take care of them, only to flip the script and then began to pimp them out. He’s accused … of whipping a young lady who’s a sex worker, and this was one of the girls that he had recruited.”
“The most troubling aspect of this case is that women have been victimized and brutalized within our community by people who had a chance to do something else with their lives,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said, Yahoo reports.
“He’s a very talented musical performer,” Willis said of Cash Out. “Unfortunately, he didn’t stay in that business, and he branched off to the business that finds him under indictment.”
In a statement on his Instagram Stories, Cash Out addressed the allegations. “The Lord says I am the one who strengthens you. Why should you fear mortals who are no more enduring than grass have you forgotten the lord who made you?” he wrote. “Those who are prisoners will soon be set free and be even more prosperus [sic] #FREECASHOUT.”
During a recent broadcast on his radio show, Rickey Smiley unpacked the lasting effect of the prostitution ring. Check out what he had to say in the YouTube clip below.
