Thanks for the honesty, G. Dep — now go to prison for 15 years.
Manhattan prosecutors are playing hardball with a rapper who walked into a Harlem precinct last year and copped to a 17-year-old, cold-case shooting — only to find out that the victim had died and he had therefore just confessed to a murder that police had long stopped investigating.
Prosecutors have declined to let the hapless Sean Combs protege, real name Trevell Coleman, get anything less than 15 years — the minimum allowed on a plea to the top charge of murder.
Defense lawyer Anthony Ricco had asked that G. Dep be given some kind of break — a plea to manslaughter and even just a couple years short of 15 prison — in recognition of his courageous act of conscience.
G. Dep has said he unburdened himself as part of a 12-step drug program — and that he did so despite his worried mother and girlfriend begging him to leave well enough alone.
“I’m just trying to get right with God,” he told The Post in an exclusive jailhouse interview back in December.
But prosecutors won’t budge — it’s plead to the murder and take your 15 years, or go to trial.
Now his only alternative is to roll the dice at trial, his lawyer said.
The case had gone stone cold in the 17 years since victim John Henkel was shot three times in the chest on Oct. 19, 1993, Ricco told reporters after a brief court appearance on the case today. So the only prosecution evidence at trial will be G. Dep’s confession, the lawyer said.
“I realize there are a lot of public pressure issues, and image issues,” Ricco said after court, blaming the prosecution’s hard line on the press the case has garnered and a publicity-conscious new DA, Cyrus Vance.
“But people are generally rewarded for the acceptance of responsibility,” the lawyer added. “That’s a part of our judicial history.”
Ricco said that had the guilt-ridden rapper simply kept his secret, the murder case, “Would have remained ice cold. I don’t think anyone disputes that.
“There had been no suspects, no investigation, nothing.”
Despite his legal peril Coleman remains at peace with his decision to confess, Ricco said.
“His decision was made for all the right reasons,” the lawyer said, calmly. “The DA should ask themselves whether they made their decision for the right reasons.”
G. Dep, whose hits include “Special Delivery,” is due back in court on Nov. 10. He had signed with Sean Combs’ Bad Boy label in 1999, and was dropped a few years later.
His videos are credited with helping popularize a dance called the Harlem shake in the early 2000s. In August, he signed with Famous Records.