Mystikal, Grammy-nominated rapper with New Orleans roots, wants gag order in rape case

Mystikal, a New Orleans-native rapper who hit it big in the early 2000s, has asked a judge to put a gag order on his rape and false imprisonment case in Ascension Parish, citing the “inordinate amount of publicity” his prosecution has been given.

Filed Thursday in Gonzales, the request was one of the first acts of Mystikal’s new defense attorney, Tiffany Myles Crosby.

The rapper, whose given name is Michael Lawrence Tyler, recently dropped his former longtime defense attorneys who successfully represented him against an earlier rape charge in north Louisiana that prosecutors threw out before trial in December 2020.

The gag order would bar attorneys for either side from commenting on the latest case to “any individual or entity,” including radio, television or newspaper reporters.

In addition to lawyers, the gag order would also apply to “all potential witnesses and law enforcement officials who either will or might testify at the trial of this case or who have information” on it. 

Tyler, 52, is expected to appear in court Monday before Judge Steven Tureau. Tyler has been in parish jail without bail since his arrest in late July. His jury trial is scheduled to start June 21.

Tyler has been accused of a strange and violent attack on July 30 against a woman he has known for more than 20 years.

Ascension sheriff’s investigators said the woman had gone to Tyler’s home in the Baton Rouge suburb of Prairieville seeking financial help to set someone up in an apartment.

But Tyler took the woman’s car keys and cellphone and held her against her will at his home. He raped and strangled her, threatened her life with scissors and, at one point, prayed with her to remove her “bad spirits.”

Before she could leave his home on Retreat Lane, Tyler forced the woman to give him $150 in cash through a cellphone app. He had accused her earlier of stealing cash from him and hit her when she denied it, the warrant alleges.