Rosemond Arrested In NYC

James Rosemond, the fugitive rap mogul sought in a cocaine-dealing case and accused in a jailhouse confession of involvement in the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur, was arrested June 21 in New York City.

Rosemond is the owner of Czar Entertainment and represents The Game and Sean Kingston, according to his website. He was also behind hits including Salt-N-Pepa’s “Shoop.”

He can now add “in custody” to his resume, after being arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and deputy U.S. Marshals on charges he ran a lucrative drug-trafficking ring that smuggled large amounts of cocaine in the New York City area.

Proceeds from the transactions are alleged to have been transported to Los Angeles in musicians’ instrument and equipment cases.
The probe relied on witnesses, one of which has pleaded guilty to charges he supplied more than 100 kilograms to the ring of a two-year period. To avoid detection, Rosemond allegedly employed overnight delivery services and musicians on the road.

Members of Rosemond’s crew allegedly stashed the Colombian marching powder in road cases and sent them to New York music studios. The cases were then shipped back to L.A. stuffed with cash, according to the complaint.

Last year, agents seized a road case containing $790,000 “packaged in vacuum-sealed plastic $100,000 bundles,” the complaint says.
Rosemond reportedly had been holed up in the W New York hotel in Manhattan under a false name at the time he was arrested. His attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, says his client has been framed.

The arrest was made one week after Lichtman came to Rosemond’s defense after prison inmate Dexter Isaac claimed involvement in the 1994 ambush of Shakur outside a Manhattan studio and accused Rosemond of ordering it in order to start a “rap war.”

“It’s a flat-out lie,” Lichtman told the New York Daily News June 15. “Dexter Isaac is not claiming this 17 years later to clear his conscience. He’s doing it because he’s told anybody who will listen he doesn’t want to die in prison.

“He has kids and wants to work off his sentence. He can’t be trusted.”

A letter from Isaac, who’s serving time at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., was posted on Allhiphop.com June 15. In the letter, Isaac claims he was hired and paid $2,500 by Rosemond to rob Shakur outside NYC’s Quad Studio. Shakur was robbed and shot five times, but survived. His subsequent 1996 murder remains unsolved.

“He gave me $2,500, plus all the jewelry I took, except for one ring, which he wanted for himself. It was the biggest of the two diamond rings that we took,” Isaac wrote. “He said he wanted to put the stone in a new setting for his girlfriend at the time, Cynthia Reid. I still have as proof the chain that we took that night in the robbery.”

Isaac also implies in the letter that he may have information about Shakur’s murder in 1996 and B.I.G.’s murder in 1997.

“Now I’m not going to talk about my friend Biggie’s death or 2Pac’s death, but I would like to give their mothers some closure. It’s about time someone did, and I will do so at a different time,” he wrote.

Isaac doesn’t hide the fact that he’s revealing the information to get back at Rosemond, who allegedly identified Isaac as a government snitch. Isaac reportedly denies the accusation.

New York City Police spokesman Paul Browne told Allhiphop.com an investigation has been opened into Isaac’s allegations.