Prince of perception: Younger brother follows in Lavish D’s gangster rap footsteps, but will it also land him in prison?

Slumped onto his elbows behind the thick jailhouse glass, Deandre Oliver looked like he was destined to follow his older brother, underground rapper Lavish D, straight into prison.

The 28-year-old south Sacramento resident, who has rapped under the moniker Prince Dreda, has been in county jail since June 9 of last year. He was expecting to get out soon, having accepted a tentative plea deal that would have meant time served over a felony charge of recklessly evading law enforcement.

Oliver and his attorney say the agreement was all but inked, but then Oliver missed his sentencing hearing for a pretty good reason: He was in the hospital getting treated for injuries sustained in a shooting that occurred a few months earlier.

That failure to appear is what’s resulting in a serious dilemma for the younger Oliver: Either spend another eight months in county jail—or risk nearly eight years in state prison.

“A nigga between a rock and a hard place,” Oliver remarked, speaking over the static of the jailhouse receiver.

Hardball tactics aren’t necessarily a new thing in Sacramento County’s criminal justice system. But the DA’s insistence on up-charging Prince Dreda reflects the latest twist in an ongoing battle between authorities and a south Sacramento clan whose sons say they’re artists—but whom law enforcement considers gangsters.

It’s rare for prosecutors to pursue maximum time against defendants who miss court dates. But Oliver and his brother Donald “Lavish D” Oliver were never average defendants.

The siblings are validated members of a south Sacramento street gang called Starz, which local law enforcement has been trying to eradicate since the subset cropped up in a housing project in the late 1990s.

Authorities believe they came close a few years back with the prosecution of Lavish D, whom they considered the head of a hydra-like syndicate dabbling in guns, drugs and prostitution. Citing amateurish music videos posted to social media platforms, for tracks like “King of the City” and “My Niggas Do,” the DA’s office argued that Lavish was acting as the Starz capo when he recorded and uploaded a cellphone video of his friends beating up a gang rival inside of an Arden Fair mall shoe store back in 2013.

In a separate incident earlier that year, police found a gun in a car in which Lavish was a passenger. Being a reputed gang leader effectively made the gun his, the prosecution was prepared to argue.

Rather than roll the dice with a trial, Lavish accepted a deal that came with a six-year prison sentence in June 2015.

For defendants facing gang allegations, a jury trial is a big gamble. The allegations allow prosecutors to introduce evidence unrelated to the charged crimes, and sentencing enhancements can balloon the amount of time a criminal conviction would bring.

This was the dilemma facing Deandre Oliver, even though he had a pretty good excuse for missing court.

“He was actually in the hospital that day, the day of his court date,” said his defense attorney Erica Graves, of the Law Offices of Wing & Parisi.

On February 20, 2016, four months before his court date, Oliver was exiting a liquor store in the Arden-Arcade neighborhood when gunfire struck him eight times, nicking his heart, piercing a lung and compromising his spleen.

“He flatlined a few times,” Graves said. “He was lucky to be alive. … It was crazy.”

It was the second time Oliver was shot, Graves noted. After the initial surgeries, Oliver returned to the hospital multiple times because he had trouble breathing and doctors feared infection, Graves said. He was also on blood thinners, said his mother, Claudia Oliver. On the day Deandre Oliver was scheduled to enter his plea before the judge, he and Graves say he was feeling ill and admitted himself to the hospital. A bench warrant was issued, gang detectives served it at his family’s home, Oliver surrendered, everything was “cordial,” as Graves put it.

But then the prosecution returned with its counteroffer—the eight months Oliver already agreed to for the felony evasion charge, plus another two years for failure to appear.

If Oliver didn’t accept the new deal, Graves said, his maximum exposure at trial rocketed to almost eight years in state prison. “He has a good case. But it’s just not worth the risk,” Graves reasoned. “So he’s just stuck.”

A DA’s office spokeswoman declined to comment on “the deliberative process associated with any filing decisions in this specific case.”

From his current home on the west side of the jail’s sixth floor, Oliver says he feels that “stuckness.” While gang allegations aren’t part of this case, both defendant and attorney say the justice system’s perception of Oliver is skewing its approach.

“They’re hammering him on the felony failure to appear,” Graves said.

Like his older brother, Oliver has been trying to break through Sacramento’s underground rap scene, a DIY landscape where some artists play gangsters and some gangsters play artists. Oliver describes himself as the former, but law enforcement has classified the aspiring entertainer and his big brother as Starz shot-callers.

The disputed association landed Lavish in state prison when prosecutors used his homemade rap videos to portray him as the gang’s leader. Oliver says his social media feed is also being used against him, with images taken from his Instagram account of him throwing up signs and holding what looks to be an automatic rifle as proof he runs with gangs.

“That’s fake, you know what I mean?” Oliver claimed. “A picture ain’t a video.”

Like other criminal defense attorneys, Graves bemoans the liberal application of gang labels against black and brown residents from poorer communities. She says Oliver has been accused of associating with gang members because he’s visited relatives whom law enforcement has also tagged as part of the Starz.

“Sometimes it’s about what street you grew up on. They’ll classify you as a gang member even when you’re not,” Graves said. “It’s certainly very subjective, and it’s at the discretion of law enforcement.”

Oliver says he’s not the only Sacramento rapper wearing a bull’s-eye.

“I feel like they targeting local entertainers,” he said. “It’s who we are, not what we did.”

Asked to name others, Oliver demurred. But Daniel “Poppy Chulo” Bush, a rapper who’s put out videos with Sacramento’s Mozzy, has been in the jail on numerous charges since April 2014.

“There a few in this county jail,” Oliver said.

That’s not to say Oliver’s record is spotless.

Oliver’s first conviction of misdemeanor vandalism happened in January 2008, when he was 19. Later that year, he was convicted of being in unlawful possession of an assault weapon, a felony, getting a one-year jail term in return. It could have been worse, but a felony gang enhancement was dismissed after he pleaded no contest to the other charge.

In October 2010, he was sentenced to two years in state prison after pleading no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

His most recent legal trouble began when Oliver allegedly failed to pull over his vehicle for sheriff’s deputies in August 2015. Oliver was arrested for reckless evasion, but there were no other charges that revealed why deputies pulled him over in the first place.

To Oliver, it’s all about his musical persona and how it supposedly proves he’s a gang member. “That’s what they’re talking about when I’m going to court,” he said. “They making me out to be a monster.”

To add insult to injury, the courts and jail have Oliver’s first name misspelled in their records, including tacking an extra “a” on at the end. He thinks he knows why.

“They always trying to add something,” he chuckled.

When Oliver spoke to SN&R at the beginning of May, he said he felt he was being railroaded into a harsher sentence than his actions merited.

“I’ve done the time for the crime I commited [sic],” he wrote in a follow-up letter printed in pencil.

Graves said she and her opposing counsel spent the next two weeks arguing over the fairness of the prosecution’s offer. Finally, in an unusual twist, Graves said the judge intervened with a recommendation of his own, or what’s called a “court offer.”

If Oliver agreed to plead to the felony charge of ducking out on his court appearance, he’d be sentenced to two years, only half of which he’d have to actually serve. And since he’s already spent the better part of a year in jail, it’s almost time for him to come home.

“He’s only got about two months left,” Graves said last week.

Oliver’s 32-year-old brother isn’t so lucky. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, inmate AX1758 is incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, midway through his six-year stint.

But his Lavish D persona has been busy, releasing new tracks with Bay Area rapper—and current Texas prison inmate—Messy Marv.

The prison birds’ latest collaboration is Marv’s aptly titled, “Everybody Know Me,” which was published to YouTube on April 23. As of press time, it had been viewed fewer than 4,000 times.