Man convicted in rapper Pop Smoke's killing gets four more years in fentanyl case

Deijae Jester, who fatally shot rapper Pop Smoke during a 2020 home invasion when he was 15, was sentenced August 13 to four years after pleading no contest in a separate fentanyl case. He admitted possessing 25 fentanyl-laced pills that prosecutors say his mother, Nickia Randall, tried to pass him during a December 2025 visit at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall. Staff noticed the exchange and recovered the pills, and investigators later found recorded calls in which Jester discussed plans to bring in contraband.

Prosecutors sought the maximum five years. Jester's attorney pointed to his upbringing and the progress he had made in custody, including earning his high school diploma, and the judge settled on four years, saying Jester's age and background were considered but that he understood what he was doing.

Jester was 15 in February 2020 when he and others entered Pop Smoke's rented Hollywood Hills home; he has said Pop Smoke initially handed over jewelry, including a diamond-encrusted watch later sold for $2,000, before fighting back, and that he pistol-whipped the rapper and shot him three times in the back. Because of his age, Jester could not be tried as an adult and was expected to remain in juvenile custody until 25, but the new fentanyl conviction is reported to move him into adult prison, though the district attorney's office separately described it as four years in county jail.

Three other people were involved in the robbery. Corey Walker, who was 19 at the time, received a 29-year sentence in 2025 for supplying the gun used in the crime. A fourth participant, who was 17 during the robbery, was sentenced in 2023 to four years and two months in juvenile detention after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and home-invasion burglary, while a third co-defendant's case is reported to still be under review.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman addressed the sentencing directly, saying Jester had been given a chance at rehabilitation but instead "chose to traffic one of the deadliest drugs imaginable from inside a juvenile detention facility." Randall, Jester's mother, faces her own pending felony charges over the alleged fentanyl handoff and has not yet entered a plea. The case remains one of the more closely watched in hip-hop, tied as it is to the 2020 killing that ended Pop Smoke's rise.