A federal judge on Friday accepted a guilty plea from Chicago rap star G Herbo, who admitted to using information from stolen credit cards to pay for private jets, expensive meals, luxury cars and a stay at a Jamaican villa.
G Herbo, whose real name is Herbert Wright III, had signed an agreement last week pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of lying to federal agents.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni in Boston accepted the deal and set sentencing for Nov. 7. Wright faces as many as 20 years in prison, though the sentence could be a lot less.
“Wright used stolen account information as his very own unlimited funding source, using victims’ payment cards to finance an extravagant lifestyle and advance his career,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy. “Wright’s conduct affected countless businesses and individuals across the United States who had to foot his nearly $140,000 bill in unauthorized transactions.”
An indictment handed down in late 2020 accused Wright and five others of obtaining stolen credit card information from “dark web sites” and other places. They also used fake IDs, driver’s licenses and e-mail accounts in the names of aliases and real businesses to defraud people and companies, the indictment stated.
In one instance, Antonio Strong, identifying himself as Wright’s manager, contacted a pet company around Nov. 29, 2017, to order two designer puppies for Wright with a stolen credit card, the indictment stated.
The same stolen credit card was used to pay for a car service to deliver the puppies to Chicago, according to the indictment.
In another case, Wright allegedly sent a direct message to Strong over Instagram around July 7, 2019, requesting a reservation at a private villa in Jamaica, the indictment stated. Strong allegedly made the reservation using stolen payment information, and Wright allegedly stayed at the villa with his associates from July 7 to July 11.
The indictment outlined several other alleged fraudulent payments, including the rental of a Maybach S600 and Bentley CGTC on March 6, 2017.
Herbo, a South Side native, grew into something of a hometown hero as a teenager in the early 2010s, helping lead Chicago’s drill music to international prominence alongside fellow rappers and collaborators Chief Keef and Lil Durk. His music has been lauded for its no-frills, penetrative approach to the violent realities he faced growing up in the city and, in more recent years, the toll they took on his mental health.
While Wright has scored gold and platinum plaques and emerged as a local philanthropist, his rise to fame continues to be hampered by legal issues.
Earlier this month, he was found with a loaded handgun during a traffic stop in the River North neighborhood, according to police records.
Wright was charged with a misdemeanor count of unlawful use of a weapon after prosecutors denied felony charges, according to an arrest report. He didn’t face additional counts related to the nearly 300 grams of cannabis that allegedly was recovered during the stop in the first block of East Ontario.
Cook County court records show he has been charged in a series of criminal cases since 2014, most of them involving drug and gun charges that have been dropped. Most recently, he pleaded guilty in 2019 to a misdemeanor gun charge and was sentenced to two years of probation.
