Travell “G. Dep” Coleman, a former rapper on Diddy’s Bad Boy label, is now eligible for parole after his life sentence for murder was commuted by Governor Kathy Hochul.
In 2010, G. Dep walked into a New York police precinct and admitted to committing a 17-year-old cold case murder to clear his conscience.
An attorney for the rapper at the time that Coleman “had been haunted” by the 1993 fatal shooting of John Henkel during a robbery in East Harlem.
Henkel was shot three times in the chest outside of an apartment complex.
His brother, Robert Henkel demanded that Gov. Hochul reject the request to grant G. Dep clemency, calling it a “farce.”
He told the New York Post that “it is one thing to seek (clemency) for drug crimes – but not murder.”
Travell “G. Dep” Coleman has served 13 years of his 15-year-to-life sentence.
The rapper earned an associate’s degree while in prison and facilitated violence prevention and sobriety counseling programs, while also participating in a variety of educational and rehabilitative classes, according to Hochul’s office.
Now that his sentence has been commuted, G. Dep will be allowed to seek parole earlier than his original 2025 date.
At the peak of his career, Coleman was a rising Hip Hop star on Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ Bad Boy Entertainment with hits like “Special Delivery” and “Let’s Get It.”
He also helped popularize the loose-limbed dance craze known as the “Harlem Shake” in the early 2000s.
Sadly, after releasing his debut album, Child of the Ghetto, in 2001, G. Dep’s rising star appeared to hit a glass ceiling.
He ultimately ended up in a vicious cycle of drug use and low-level arrests…until he walked into the police precinct and admitted to murder.
I pray Travell will take full advantage of the second chance he’s been given.
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Source: NBC New York
