A man who admitted to killing rapper Pop Smoke has been sentenced to four more years in jail for distributing fentanyl in a juvenile detention facility.
Deijae Jester, 21, was sentenced on Thursday after entering a no contest plea in June to possession for sale of a controlled substance, bringing contraband into a jail and bringing or sending contraband into a juvenile hall or camp, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Jester’s mother, Nickia Tyonia Randall, is charged with the same offenses after allegedly attempting to hand him two latex balls containing fentanyl pills while visiting him at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar on Dec. 14 last year, per the district attorney’s office. Jail officials recovered one ball containing 25 fentanyl pills.
open image in gallery“Deijae Jester committed a devastating crime when he took the life of Pop Smoke,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement announcing the sentence. “Because he was a juvenile, the law afforded him an opportunity for redemption.”
“Instead of embracing that opportunity, he chose to traffic one of the deadliest drugs imaginable from inside a juvenile detention facility,” Hochman wrote. “He was given the chance at rehabilitation by serving seven years in a juvenile hall but he chose to smuggle in fentanyl.”
Pop Smoke murder
Pop Smoke, whose legal name was Bashar Barakah Jackson, was shot and killed in the shower during a home invasion and robbery in Hollywood Hills on Feb. 19, 2020.
The Brooklyn-born artist was on a four-day trip to California from New York and had posted pictures online of the garden and infinity pool at his Airbnb, along with a gift bag containing the property’s address, officials said at the time. Before his death, he was credited with helping bridge the gap between UK drill and New York hip-hop.
Jester, who was 15 years old at the time of the murder, was among four people charged in the rapper’s killing.
In 2023, Jester admitted to a first-degree murder charge connected to the shooting, alongside an allegation that he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm during the offense, as well as a home-invasion robbery count.
The presiding judge urged Jester and a teen co-defendant to “make better choices” and understand the grief they caused, warning them in June 2023 that continuing along that trajectory would send them to state prison or a graveyard.
With reporting by City News Service