According to the Associated Press, Mystikal has pleaded not guilty to charges including rape and false imprisonment at his arraignment on Monday. Mystikal was arrested at the end of July for an incident in which he’s alleged to have held a woman against her will, sexually assaulting her and robbing her in an apparent drug-induced episode. Mystikal was denied bond as a result of the grisly details described by the alleged victim. However, Mystikal’s attorney maintains his innocence, telling Rolling Stone, “My client doesn’t even do drugs, so he has absolutely no idea what they were talking about.”
Mystikal has previously been accused of sexual assault two other times. In 2004, he pled guilty to sexually assaulting his hairstylist, serving a six-year prison sentenced and registering as a sex offender. In 2017, he was accused of sexual assault of a casino employee, but the charges were dropped after over a year when a grand jury was presented new evidence and declined to indict the rapper. In that case, he paid $3 million bond after nearly 18 months in jail.
Should his current case proceed to trial, Mystikal faces a potential life sentence for the first-degree rape charge, as well as domestic abuse, battery by strangulation, simple robbery, and miscellaneous possession of controlled substance charges.