to break up the fight. Phipps was arrested and charged with second-degree murder of Victor. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to thirty years in prison on September 21, 2001. He would serve his sentence at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in Louisiana. Days into the police investigation, Thomas Williams, a man who was working security that night at the club, confessed to shooting Victor after another patron charged him with a beer bottle. Despite this, police pursued charges against Phipps. In December 2014, Northwestern University's Medill Justice Project (MJP), in partnership with The Lens, published the results of a three-month investigation of Phipps' conviction, revealing that a key eyewitness at his trial gave his private investigator an affidavit in 2013 that stated she was coerced into identifying Phipps as the shooter because of investigators' threats to charge her. Following Medill's investigation, David Lohr of The Huffington Post published the results of a four-month review of Phipps' conviction, further revealing that four other witnesses to the shooting told the publication that they also were threatened, intimidated or outright ignored by investigators. Phipps' family has since obtained affidavits from many of the individuals in an effort to get him a new trial. On March 25, 2015, rapper Killer Mike told students at Dillard University in New Orleans that it was unacceptable for authorities to use rap lyrics in the prosecution of Phipps: "If we let this stand, what you're going to see is that tool is going to be used to wipe out an entire potential generation of [artists] out of our community." Phipps has applied for the Louisiana governor’s clemency in 2016, asking to be released from prison for time served. In the petition sent to the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole he seeks a commutation due to a "wrongful conviction and excessive sentence", as "evidence developed over the last two years" which includes, among other things, findings from MJP's investigation. On February 22, 2021, the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole voted for Phipps' immediate eligibility for parole. On April 8, 2021, the Louisiana governor granted Phipps clemency. According to Louisiana law, Phipps has one more hearing before he is released. On June 22, 2021, Phipps was released from prison after serving twenty years. Discography Studio albums Collaboration albums Goodfellas with 504 Boyz (2000) Compilation albums Lost Tapes (2007) Mixtapes Uptown Veterans'' (2012) Singles References External links