Slick Trouble

True, there were less lovable things about him. Walters took heat for the lyrics of one of his biggest early successes, "Treat Her Like a Prostitute," which became a mixtape hit in 1990 even though radio kept it off the air for lines like "take off your rubber and there's one more inside her." But Rick's delivery was rarely harsh — he seemed somehow lovingly misogynistic.

As his fame grew, however, his notoriety quickly outpaced his ability to deal with it. Newly rich, he bought real estate and fancy cars that got him unwanted attention.

"I was a little more flashy," Walters told an immigration judge in 1995. "I used to wear a lot of jewelry, drive fancy cars. I just got a lot of money real fast, and I just acted like a child with a lot of money."

Walters also spent money on protection. He knew that in his part of the Bronx, a slight, newly minted superstar with vision in only one eye and gold on every finger made for a tempting target.

Increasingly concerned that he was vulnerable, he began carrying firearms and hiring bodyguards.

"Living by myself, making records, and my name already being known all over the place, I felt I would need a little protection of some sort," he testified later.

So when his cousin, Mark Plummer, arrived in New York fresh from Jamaica with a tough-guy reputation, Walters hired him as a bodyguard. It turned out to be a bad idea — Plummer wanted easy money and drug connections, not work, Walters claimed.

"He was using this tough-guy stuff on me, and I felt at the time that I was vulnerable," Walters told an immigration judge in 1995. He soon fired Plummer, giving him $3,000 and a van as severance. But it wasn't enough. "Then all type of strange things was happening," Walters said. "I was getting robbed. People ran into my house, tied me up, and beat me — pistol-whipped."

In April of 1990, outside a Bronx club at 3 a.m., several men approached Walters near his Nissan Pathfinder. "We want you," they told him before two of them blasted 20 shots, hitting Walters three times and sending him, his female passenger, and a man standing nearby to the hospital. Walters recognized the assailants as friends of Plummer's.

After that, Walters bought handguns — five different kinds — and a sawed-off shotgun. He began carrying them almost everywhere he went. His friends sensed the trouble and found excuses to avoid him. Meanwhile, Plummer got even more direct. "He just straight up said 'Yes, I did it.' He wanted money. I was afraid to come out my own house," Walters told the judge.

On July 3, 1990, Walters and his girlfriend, Lisa Santiago, went out to get some Chinese food, Walters wearing his Davis 380 automatic pistol in his waistband, the other guns and ammunition scattered throughout the car — in coat pockets, in a bag under Santiago's feet, and on the floor. After eating, they got into Walters' black car to go shopping for their unborn baby that Santiago, then seven months pregnant, was carrying.

Then Walters, edgy and paranoid, spotted his cousin, Plummer, coming out of a store at 241st Street and White Plains Road. Walters reached for the closest gun and fired.

His first two shots, aimed out of the window of the car as he drove past, missed Plummer entirely and hit the ankles of Wilbert Henry, an unemployed taxi driver who was standing at the curb. Walters then shot Plummer twice in the leg and once in the arm before Plummer managed to escape inside a store. Walters sped off.

He led police on a short high-speed chase south on the Bronx River Parkway, weaving between cars, then tried to exit the highway with a sudden turn from the left lane. He misjudged the distance and crashed into a tree. Both of Santiago's legs were broken in the collision, and Walters was covered with cuts. When they arrived at the hospital, Walters and Santiago were both arrested.

Walters was indicted on two counts of attempted murder. He pleaded guilty to all charges, including assault, use of a firearm, and possession of a weapon. And in 1991, he was sentenced to 40 months to ten years in prison.

For the next two years, he served time in at least four New York correctional facilities. He kept himself busy by taking classes: music, commercial arts, shop, and a course in aggression replacement treatment. His only act of insubordination was refusing to participate in the General Business Program. He could have used it — at the time, he owed the U.S. government $100,000 in back taxes.

The superintendent of the New York Department of Corrections, John O'Keefe, assessed Walters' overall disciplinary record as "excellent." By July 1993, the singer was given work-release privileges, which allowed him to live at home and spend his days working on a new album, Behind Bars, for Def Jam. He settled civil lawsuits with both of his victims, gave interviews about the dangers of crime, and talked to wayward youth about his experiences in jail. He told the world he had changed.