Casanova Pleads Guilty to Racketeering Conspiracy, Drug Charges

Casanova has pleaded guilty in his federal racketeering case.

The Brooklyn rapper, whose real name is Caswell Senior, admitted to shooting someone at a party in Florida in July 2020 over a gambling dispute.

According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he also admitted to a 2018 robbery in Manhattan in which a member of his entourage choked a woman unconscious after she recorded him on her phone, and conspiring to distribute over 100 kilograms of marijuana.

Casanova, who had a “leadership role” in the Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation Bloods Gang, copped to racketeering and narcotics charges in U.S. District Court in White Plains.

He faces a maximum of 60 years in federal prison, with a mandatory minimum term of five years, when he is sentenced Dec. 6. The previous charges of attempted murder and assault with a dangerous weapon were dismissed.

“Mr. Senior accepted responsibility for his conduct which was possession with intent to sell marijuana and the robbery of a young lady in a diner who was filming him with her phone,” his lawyer, James Kousouros, told Pitchfork. “We hope that our presentation to the court in advance of sentencing will illuminate the facts and circumstances surrounding this case and present Mr. Senior for the person that he really is.”

“Like twelve of his co-defendants, Caswell Senior, an accomplished recording artist and performer, now stands convicted of playing a leadership role in Gorilla Stone, a particularly violent Bloods gang that operates throughout New York and across the country,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “In addition to his supervisory role, Senior was an active, hands-on participant in the gang’s senseless violence, including a shooting in Miami and contributing to a robbery at a Manhattan diner.”

Casanova surrendered to NYPD in December 2020 after he and 17 other members of the Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation Bloods Gang were indicted in a racketeering and drug conspiracy case. The 35-year-old rapper is the 13th defendant in the Gorilla Stone case to plead guilty.