Kevin Barnes is too blessed to be stressed.
Ever since he starred on MTV?s “Making the Band” as “Chopper,” a protege of Sean “Diddy” Combs, Barnes has been touring clubs, preparing an album, making a home for himself in Atlanta ? basically “rap hustling,” as he calls it.
But a night he?d left behind years ago in Baltimore County just caught up with him.
Barnes, 21, was arrested earlier this month on an old county warrant he said he didn?t know existed. An Atlanta police officer broke the news after pulling him over for an illegal U-turn Barnes allegedly made while driving, he said, “something nice.”
“I was like, what? I said, What are you talking about, warrant? I said, don?t do this to me, man. I don?t have a warrant out on me,” Barnes recalled Monday in a phone interview. But he did, for failing to appear in court on a robbery charge he faced when he was 16.
It seems that whenever Barnes had trouble in New Orleans, where he grew up with his father, he said, he?d “vacate” to his mother?s Maryland home for a few weeks. He was staying with her on Sept. 29, 2001, when he allegedly pedaled up to a young couple on a mountain bike near Eastpoint Mall, flashed a gun and yanked $90 in cash from the man?s pocket, according to police and court records.
Barnes was arrested at the scene and made it to an early court appearance on the charges, his attorney Paul Gardner said. But because of confusion after the family moved, Gardner said, he never got a notice to come back. Barnes said he thought the case was dropped.
“He?s traveling the world with Puffy, stepping out of limousines,” Gardner said of his client?s fame since the show?s 2002 season. “Their album actually went platinum so, you know, he?s got a heck of a fan base and he?s thinking everything?s fine.”
Barnes was taken to an Atlanta jail and held for two weeks before authorities moved him to Maryland, Gardner said. He faces robbery, assault and theft charges and was released after bail was set Friday at $75,000.
