G. Dep has just found out that he may be going home early, more than 13 years after he confessed to a cold-case murder.
Gothamist is reporting that the rapper is one of 16 people who were officially granted clemency by New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday (December 22).
It’s worth noting that, in this case, clemency simply means that the 49-year-old rapper (real name Trevell Coleman) has gotten his sentence commuted. In other words, he is now eligible to ask for parole sooner than he would normally have been able to.
G. Dep’s initial sentence of 15 years to life previously included stipulations that prevented him from asking for parole before the 15 year mark. As of this writing, he’s been in prison for 13 years.
Hochul’s clemency grant allows him to petition the parole board for release as early as Spring 2024.
Ultimately, however, Hochul said that it’s up to parole board to allow G. Dep to leave prison early.
Back in 1993, the then-18-year-old G. Dep tried to rob someone at gunpoint in East Harlem, NY. The victim — who was later identified as 32-year-old John Henkel — resisted the robbery, so G. Dep fired off three bullets and fled the scene without checking on his victim.
Unfortunately, Henkel ultimately died from his injuries.
For years, police couldn’t solve the New York man’s murder; and as the case went cold, G. Dep signed a deal with Diddy and Bad Boy Entertainment, where he quickly began making a name for himself.
In 2010, G. Dep turned himself in, and in 2012, he was sentenced to 15 years to life for the murder.
During an interview with The New York Post from Rikers Island shortly after he was sentenced, the former Bad Boy rapper said he was content with his life choices. “Maybe at the end of serving time or after looking back, someone might feel differently,” he said. “But now I feel what I did was right.”
Dep also spoke on what he would tell his teenage self if he had the opportunity now. “I would have told myself to stop playing with guns,” he said. “Sometimes you think things happen for a reason, and if I wasn’t who I was then, like maybe my daughter would have never been born.”
He said that he still hasn’t forgiven himself but that he’s “working on it.” He also said that his family is starting to understand why he confessed to the murder nearly 20 years later.
“I think my daughter understands why,” he said. “My sons, they know that I’m in jail. I talk to them a lot.”
