NEW YORK (AP) — Rapper Kay Flock was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison for a series of shootings in his Bronx neighborhood, derailing a music career that was just taking off before his 2021 arrest.
The 22-year-old rapper, whose real name is Kevin Perez, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman, who criticized Perez for sending the wrong message to his young peers by glorifying violence during a less-than-18-month stretch from 2020 to 2021 that prosecutors said left dozens of people on Bronx streets shot at, injured or killed.
“You taunted, you celebrated and you helped create a cycle of violence,” Liman said, noting that Perez bragged on social media that he was exonerated on the top count and wrote “KILL ALL RATS” on Instagram after a trial in which gang members testified against him.
The judge called Perez a “man of promise” but said a lengthy prison sentence was necessary for four separate shootings that injured multiple people while he led a gang known as “Sev Side/DOA.” Perez was convicted in March of charges including racketeering conspiracy and attempted murder.
Perez insisted that he had changed, saying: “What I was at 18 is not what I am today.”
