Podcast Personality Taxstone Arraigned, Given House Arrest

Podcast personality Taxstone, born Daryl Campbell, was arraigned in federal court Tuesday (Jan. 17) in New York City after being arrested for criminal possession of a firearm by a felon and receiving a firearm by interstate commerce. The arrest is in connection to the Irving Plaza shooting from May of last year that left Troy Ave injured in both legs and his bodyguard Ronald "Banga" McPhatter dead.

According to the the federal complaint, Campbell is believed to have entered the room where the shooting took place with the firearm in question, a 9mm Kel-Tec semiautomatic handgun. It's the same gun that left Troy Ave wounded and Banga dead, and the DNA traces on the gun have prosecutors concluding that Campbell loaded the gun.

In court today, Assistant District Attorney Hagan Scotten claimed Taxstone fired the gun first. "He had a gun in his hand and he murdered someone," DNAInfo reports Scotten as saying as he argued against Tax being granted bail. The question, of course, is why Tax would only be charged with possession and not murder or attempted murder if the prosecution does indeed believe he killed Banga.

Judge Andrew Beck set Campbell's bail at $500,000. Tax will be put on house arrest and given an ankle monitor to wear; he will be limited in movement except to record his podcast and meet with his lawyers.

In surveillance footage that circulated across the internet at the time, Troy Ave, born Roland Collins, is seen leaving the green room where the initial shooting occurred wearing blood-spattered jeans and holding the gun that Taxstone allegedly brought into the venue that night. He aims and fires at someone that looks like Campbell, leading to Troy being arrested for attempted murder. 

Today Troy Ave's lawyer John Stella echoed their belief that there was another shooter in the room that night. “As we have said since May 25, 2016, Roland Collins did not enter Irving Plaza with a handgun the night of the T.I. concert,” Stella said. “I view the charges brought today before the (federal court) as a positive step in the direction of true justice for what occurred at Irving Plaza that night.”

The prosecution has used social media pictures and clips from Taxstone's own podcast to build their case against him. One audio clip released prior to the May shooting finds Campbell boasting about how he'd shoot people who ran up on him. “When I see you walking up with six dudes, bang-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba...I want to embarrass somebody, and that’s why I started bullying Troy Ave, you know what I mean?” The two were known to have a long-standing beef with each other.

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