Rising Toronto rapper Da Crook walked out of a Toronto courtroom a free man this week after Justice Sheila Ray systematically destroyed the prosecution’s case against the Hip-Hop artist known as Da Crook in a $6.5 million luxury watch heist.
The 31-year-old was accused of participating in an armed robbery at a Spadina Avenue watch dealer on October 30, 2023, where masked suspects made off with 150 watches — mainly Rolexes — valued at $6.5 million and $250,000 in cash.
The brazen daylight robbery was captured on surveillance cameras and showed one suspect posing as a FedEx delivery driver to gain entry to the sixth-floor office.
According to the Toronto Star, prosecutor Mark Friedman had presented what he called 10 “extraordinary” coincidences linking Collins to the crime, including DNA evidence on a balaclava and COVID-19 mask found at the scene, walkie-talkies purchased by Collins four days before the robbery, and $23,000 in cash found at his home during his arrest six months later.
But Justice Ray wasn’t buying it. In her acquittal decision, she methodically addressed each of the Crown’s 10 points, offering her own 10 reasons to dismiss them.
“It was entirely plausible and reasonable that Collins bought walkie-talkies for use in his music videos,” Ray found, rejecting the prosecution’s claim that the communication devices tied him to the robbery.
The judge was particularly skeptical of the DNA evidence, noting it was “unlikely the perpetrators of such a carefully planned robbery would take incriminating evidence to a crime scene.” She suggested the items in the box were simply discarded at some point rather than deliberately left behind.
When it came to physical identification, Ray delivered perhaps her most pointed rebuke: “There are thousands of people in Toronto who look like him. There are thousands, maybe more, (Black people) in Toronto who are light-skinned people — we see them every day.”
The prosecution had also tried to use Collins’ rap lyrics against him, playing his song “First Day Out” in court.
In the track, Collins raps: “Google is telling me my net worth is seven million, s—, oh really, guess I been getting busy” while standing in front of a white Rolls-Royce SUV.
“That’s this case, right, that’s the watches that you stole,” Friedman challenged Collins during cross-examination.
“I disagree,” Collins replied, explaining the lyric referenced “inaccurate” and “crazy” things people were saying about him online.
“All my music videos have nice cars in them,” he testified. “Even if a rapper is broke, he’s going to rent a vehicle or put nice clothes on to make it look like he’s doing good. No one wants to see a Honda Accord parked behind him.”
Defense lawyer Alison Craig called the Crown’s use of rap lyrics “stereotypical, inappropriate… and a dangerous submission to be making.”
Justice Ray ultimately found that even considering all the prosecution’s arguments collectively, along with “very weak eyewitness identification,” the Crown failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Collins was one of the robbers.