Pressa free to rap after being cleared of kidnapping charge
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Rap star Pressa entertained fans for Raptors’ ambassador Drake’s world tour while the young prodigy faced shocking criminal allegations he pistol-whipped a teen hostage in a brutal incident in 2016.
Pressa — whose real name is Quenton Gardiner — was free on bail for 18 months before he was cleared of a kidnapping charge in December 2017.
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His bail conditions enabled the budding star to tour with the superstar Toronto rapper.
Drake — who is celebrating the great success of the Raptors lately — had absolutely nothing to do with the heinous crime.
Court has heard the two teenaged victims — linked to the gang, Queens Drive Crips — were forced to play Russian roulette and perform sex acts by rivals, members of Young Buck Killas. The victims were held hostage for a few days after an April 19, 2016 shootout between the gangsters at a condo near the Rogers Centre.
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Gardiner’s charge was tossed at a preliminary hearing as Justice Malcolm McLeod ruled in his judgment that the victim’s evidence wasn’t sufficient to identify Pressa as the gunman who struck him in the head.
“All we have is the victim’s unsupported opinion that (the assailant) … looked like the guy he had seen on a YouTube video performing under the name Pressa,” concluded McLeod.
One kidnapper and rapper, Lincoln “Ranski” Richards, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in prison in January and last week, another kidnapper, Thai-Shay “Pistol” Gordon, received nine years .
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This victim whose identity is covered by a publication ban was freed by the kidnappers after his mom paid $3,000 of the demanded $10,000 ransom. The victim said the videos of the forced sex acts would be posted online if the remaining $7,000 wasn’t paid within a week, Crown attorney Liz Nadeau said in court.
Once released from the hospital, the victim gave a lengthy, detailed statement to police, but “at the end of the video, the victim decided there was no way he was going to testify and be a rat and became unco-operative,” said Nadeau. “His statement was corroborated by an impressive amount of forensic and other evidence.”
Gardiner’s prominent lawyer Anthony Robbins called the judge’s decision to dismiss the kidnapping charge against his client “sound as there were problems with reliability. There was poor identification evidence.”
Robbins said he was upset with police officers who opposed his client’s relaxed bail conditions which assisted Gardiner to advance his career by joining Drake’s tour. His bail conditions were varied several times during an 18-month period before Gardiner was cleared of the allegations against him.
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