Mystikal has been arrested on charges including first-degree rape, false imprisonment, and domestic abuse battery. The New Orleans rapper, who has previously gone to prison for sexually assaulting his hairstylist, allegedly attacked and raped a woman in his Louisiana home over the weekend.
The arrest warrant alleges an incident on Saturday evening in which the 52-year-old artist Michael Tyler began to physically assault an acquaintance after accusing her of stealing $100 from him. Tyler punched and choked the woman and took away her phone and keys. Soon after though, he reportedly began to apologize, asked if he could “feel” her, and when she refused, forcibly raped her on a bed.
Afterward, while demanding the woman return the money he claimed she stole, he used her phone to send himself $150 on CashApp before finally allowing her to leave his home. The woman traveled to a hospital in Baton Rouge, where a sexual assault kit was performed on her, revealing injuries that were consistent with her account of the attack, deputies say.
The incident is the third time that the rapper has been accused of sexual assault. In 2003, he pleaded guilty to charges of sexual battery and extortion, after he and two of his bodyguards accused a woman of stealing $80,000 in checks and forced her to perform oral sex. Tyler served six years in prison and became a registered sex offender upon his release in 2010. In 2017, Mystikal turned himself in after a warrant was out for his arrest stemming from an alleged rape that occurred at a casino in Louisiana, though the case was ultimately dropped due to a lack of evidence.
Tyler is currently in jail without bond. A bond hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
