Photo Credit: Bernard Spragg / CC by 1.0
Nipsey Hussle’s killer was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison on Wednesday by a Los Angeles judge.
The man convicted of killing rapper Nipsey Hussle was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke II sentenced Eric R. Holder Jr., the 33-year-old found guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting of Nipsey Hussle (whose real name was Airmiess Joseph Asghedom) outside The Marathon, the Los Angeles clothing store the rapper had founded.
Holder was not eligible for the death penalty. The sentencing had been delayed several times to enable defense attorney Aaron Jansen to argue for reducing the conviction to manslaughter or second-degree murder, which Judge Jacke rejected in December.
“Nipsey was my friend; he was like a son, he was like a dad,” said Herman “Cowboy” Douglas, a close friend of Hussle’s who was standing with him when he was killed and testified during the trial. “Our community right now, we lost everything we worked for. One man’s mistake, one man’s action, messed up a whole community.”
“I don’t care what you give this guy,” Douglas continued to the judge. “It ain’t about the time. I just want to know why. The world wants to know why — why someone would do that.”
Last summer, jurors also convicted Holder of two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter and two counts of assault with a firearm, resulting from gunfire that hit two other men at the scene of the crime, both of whom survived. In July, the jury went only an hour into their second day of deliberation before announcing they had reached a verdict.
Jansen, Holder’s attorney, argued for his client to face a lesser charge hinging on the contention that Hussle, who was a member of the Rollin 60s gang — the same gang as his killer — had made remarks to Holder implying that he was a snitch and that his life was in danger. Jansen maintained in his argument that Holder was so shaken by the accusation that he was not in his right mind when he returned and shot Hussle and the two other men.
“This was not just a pleasant conversation between homies who are chopping it up,” Jansen said in his closing argument. “This was a serious accusation. Mr. Holder Jr. took it serious, as it was. He knows the consequences of being called a snitch in this manner.”
Holder was attacked in prison last year by other inmates who reportedly punched him and injured him with a razor while in a holding cell.
