HOUSTON, Texas — Edmond Marquez Herron, also known as rapper “E20,” may now be singing the blues after being accused of theft in an alleged fraud scheme.
"It's a big allegation," said Rick Watson, a special prosecutor with the Texas Department of Insurance embedded within the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Those are among multiple agencies handling new cases against Herron arising from an initial one involving stolen VIN, or vehicle identification numbers.
“I’ve been doing these kinds of crimes for a long time," said Watson. "I’ve never seen people use VIN numbers they just get off the internet.”
Basically, Herron and his wife, Ariana York, are accused of using VIN info to insure vehicles online that were not theirs before submitting fraudulent claims for minor crashes while pretending to be both drivers involved.
"The insurance companies would pay on it without knowing that there were forged names and that they didn’t own these vehicles,” said Watson.
Herron and York are charged with first-degree theft over $300,000, money laundering over $300,000 and identity theft for allegedly using personal information of nearly 25 people.
"And eventually they were tracked by their IP addresses to come back to the two of them," said Watson.
It’s not necessarily a typical criminal case you might expect from a rapper, but one that could result in a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.
We're told Herron bonded out of jail Friday while York remains locked up on a combined $120,000 bond.
We've reached out to rapper E20’s representatives. We got a reply, but no official comment so far.