Source: D.L. Chandler / Hip-Hop Wired
Usually when some people claim to be a part of a famous rap entourage it’s to get club access, women or clout on social media, but two men in Georgia took the fraudulent practice to another level and are paying dearly for it.
WRDW is reporting that Walker Washington has just been sentenced to eight years in prison for defrauding 19 businesses out of hospitality services by claiming to be a member of the iconic Hip-Hop group, Wu-Tang Clan. Over the weekend U.S. District Court Judge Dudley H. Bowen ordered the 53-year-old Augustan to serve 100 months in the bing after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and instructed him to pay $300K to the businesses he swindled during his crime spree.
Once he’s served his time, Washington will be under supervised released for an addition three years for his transgressions.
His co-defendant, Aaron Barnes-Burpo of Crestview, Fla. was hit with a slightly lighter sentence as he only received 84 months for his role in the scheme, but must also repay the businesses he ripped off alongside Washington.
In court documents and testimony, Washington and Barnes-Burpo admitted they falsely portrayed themselves as affiliated with the Roc Nation production company and the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan as early as September 2019. They used those fictitious representations along with fraudulent and stolen credit cards to rent luxury limousines and defraud hotels, caterers and production studios of thousands of dollars in goods and services in multiple cities, primarily in the Southeast.
The scam unraveled Nov. 21, 2019, when staff at the Fairfield Inn and Suites in Augusta became suspicious and alerted the FBI and the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
For a few weeks there Washington and Barnes-Burpo were really living high off the hog, but if you know the Wu you know that ain’t no pork on they fork. It was only a matter of time before the jig would be up.
Pretty clever scheme though. Still, don’t try to replicate the move on your own. Y’all already see such practices can land you in a jail cell for a hefty amount of time.
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