After spending 16 years in jail for a double homicide he says he didn’t commit, rapper Mac Minister, whose real name is Andre Dow, is telling his story.
One of those murders, allegedly, was a revenge killing of the men thought to have been involved in the murder of Bay Area rap legend Mac Dre.
In an interview with the San Francisco Standard, Mac Minister said his life has been “hell” since a key witness lied on him during his trial, which resulted in a life sentence.
“It has been hell,” Mac Minister said in a phone call from a Nevada prison just north of Las Vegas. “Hell. It has been hell.”
Mac Minister was convicted by a Clark County jury in 2008 of murder and conspiracy in the deadly shootings of Kansas City rapper Anthony “Fat Tone” Watkins and his associate Germaine “Cowboy” Akins.
The prosecution painted the narrative that Mac Minister and another accomplice lured the two men to Las Vegas in May 2005. He allegedly told them he could get them a meeting with Snoop Dogg.
However, the state said it was a trap, and Mac Minister and his guy shot the men in an isolated area to pay them back for killing Mac Dre.
Despite law enforcement clearing him as a suspect, rumors still lingered linking Watkins to the death of Mac Dre earlier this year.
Minister Mac denies that.
“I didn’t have a dog in the fight,” Dow said. He also said he was a fan of Watkins and would have never killed him. He called him the “best rapper that I ever heard.”
Watkins and another man named Germaine “Cowboy” Atkins were last seen with Mac Minister on the night of his death, leaving the MGM hotel. But Mac Minister says the two parties parted ways.
“I don’t have a clue what happened,” he said. “I know they dead.”
Mac Minister has never wavered on his insistence that he is innocent.
As reported by AllHipHop.com, a witness said he lied on the stand about him killing the two men and one additional person, a sex worker named Lee Laursen found dead in the city.
Later it was discovered that Mouton ratted, according to court records, after being promised leniency and money in an unrelated federal case in return for his testimony.
At the time, Mouton faced up to 40 years for pleading guilty to a federal charge of sex trafficking a minor, and those charges were lessened for his testimony about Mac Minister.
This story is developing.