The boss of a Philadelphia-based hip hop label has been jailed for life after being convicted of running a $25 million cross-state drugs ring.
Prosecutors claimed that Alton 'Ace Capone' Coles used his label, Take Down Records, as a front for a multi-million dollar drugs operation which, they reckon, moved two tonnes of powdered cocaine and half a tonne of crack between 1997 and 2005. Ironically the label released a straight-to-DVD movie called 'New Jack City: The Next Generation' in which Capone appeared alongside artists signed to the label playing a drug lord involved in a brutal war for the city's drug trade.
The DVD was used as evidence in the trial, though presumably the half a million dollars, ten guns and 450 grams of coke found at the hip hop mogul's home were the evidence that secured the conviction. Responding to his life sentence a tearful Capone said: "I never thought it would come to this".