Rapper, 2 others found guilty in 2020 crimes
One of the armed men who forced his way into a Miramar couple’s home with gun in hand and a mask covering his face cooked himself chicken, drank his victims’ liquor and washed the dishes in the midst of the home invasion robbery and kidnapping.
The crime, described as a “nightmare” in court records, began with a knock on the door on Oct. 11, 2020, and lasted throughout the night, into the next morning. More than two years later, a jury has found three South Florida men guilty of committing the crimes.
The jury returned their verdict Tuesday after a two-week trial, finding rapper Splash Zanotti, whose real name is Kejuan Brandon Campbell, and co-defendants Antonio Charles James Jr. “Yung Fokiss” and Dionte Alexander-Wilcox “Trap Savage” guilty of one count of conspiracy to kidnap, two counts of kidnapping, three counts of bank robbery and three counts of carrying a firearm during a crime of violence.
Before the knock on the 60-year-old woman’s door, her estranged nephew stole $20,000 from Campbell. The three men wanted to get it back and knew the couple in Miramar were the closest relatives of the friend who stole the cash, according to court records.
Campbell picked Alexander-Wilcox and James Jr. up, and the three headed to the Miramar home, court records say. The woman heard the knock at her door and peered out the window. James Jr. said he was there to speak to her nephew.
The woman said she hadn’t seen her nephew in years. James Jr. then said he couldn’t understand the woman speaking through the window. So she opened the door.
“This is when the nightmare began,” federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Alexander-Wilcox put a gun to the woman’s forehead, forced his way into the home and found the woman’s 66-year-old husband in the bathroom, smacking him with the gun, while she was being held on the ground in their living room, court records say. All three of the armed, masked men stayed at the home until the next morning.
In an interview with authorities after his arrest, Alexander-Wilcox said he, Campbell and James Jr. hadn’t devised their plan past the point of getting the victims onto the ground.
“After that, we just went searching in the house to try to see what we could get for $20,000,” Alexander-Wilcox told the investigators, according to a transcript of his interview.
For at least an hour, they tried to use CashApp, a money transferring application, on the woman’s phone to transfer themselves the money, but it wouldn’t work, Alexander-Wilcox told investigators. James Jr. had the idea to post the victims’ cars for sale on Craigslist, which they did.
Campbell then tried cashing four $5,000 checks he forced the woman to write, court records say. When the Amscot in Pembroke Pines refused to cash them, Campbell went back to the home and forced the woman to go back to the Amscot with him, and they still declined. A Publix also refused to cash them.
Meanwhile, her husband was home, held at gunpoint by James Jr. and Alexander-Wilcox, according to federal prosecutors.
Alexander-Wilcox told detectives that had the CashApp payment worked, the three would have left then. But after their failed attempts, they stayed at the home overnight, and Alexander-Wilcox made chicken, drank and washed the dishes afterward, according to the transcript of his interview.
“They kept a gun pointed at the couple inside and did not allow them to speak to one another,” prosecutors said in a news release Thursday. “At one point, with gun in hand, Alexander-Wilcox forced the wife into a bedroom and raped her.”
On the morning of Oct. 12, after several more failed attempts at getting the cash, Campbell told the woman to call her bank and request higher ATM withdrawal limits, according to court records. They drove to various ATMs, Campbell armed at all times, and withdrew just over $20,000.
Once back at the Miramar home, the armed men packed two of the victims’ suitcases with liquor, jewelry and clothing, including
the man’s underwear, court records say, and deleted footage and tampered with the home’s surveillance system.
“Before leaving, they warned the victims not to call law enforcement or harm would come to them,” court records say.
Splash Zanotti was a close friend of slain rapper XXXTentacion and associated with other upcoming local rap artists like Lil Pump and Ski Mask the Slump God, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in 2020. In an Instagram post in December 2020, prior to his arrest, Splash Zanotti said he had nearly 300,000 listeners in the year on the streaming platform Spotify and his music had been streamed over 1 million times.
Campbell, James Jr. and Alexander-Wilcox will be sentenced on April 27. They face a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of life in federal prison, prosecutors said.