Rapper Keith Cozart (aka "Chief Keef") is evicted from his Highland Park, Illinois rental home on June 10, 2014, but the man who rented to him says he's just moving out. Meanwhile, his Highland Park neighbors say Keef was a major nuisance. Chief Keef’s Instagram site tells the story: “Lookin For Houses.”
The South Side rapper, whose legal name is Keith Cozart, was evicted Tuesday from his rented mansion in Highland Park, police said. It’s the latest in a long list of legal troubles for Cozart — though a criminal investigation connected to him in another North Shore community has been closed, authorities said Tuesday.
Movers carried Cozart’s belongings out of the custom two-story brick home to a moving truck as Lake County Sheriff’s deputies looked on. The owner of the house, Bal Bansal, said Cozart, 18, had been a good tenant and his departure was voluntary, but police confirmed it was an eviction.
According to court records, Cozart had been about $30,000 behind in rent payments as of March but had reached an agreement to catch up by April 20. But a final eviction order was filed May 7, records show.
Some of Cozart’s Highland Park neighbors said have complained about noise, traffic, cars blocking the driveway or on the lawn and other problems at the home.
“It's been horrible,” neighbor Ken Cooper said. “… They were certainly not good tenants.”
Highland Park Deputy City Manager Ghida Neukirch confirmed police have responded to “calls of concern from neighbors that were based on media reports of Chief Keef's history.” But she said nothing serious came from those calls. In one case this spring, she said, a neighbor called police about a possible gunshot heard from the house, but authorities determined the noise was caused by a tire blowout.
Still, the eviction is the latest in a series of misadventures for Cozart. He was little known beyond his fans on the South Side and in Chicago Public Schools, according to media profiles, until he was arrested for allegedly pointing a gun at a Chicago police officer, and he shot to viral video fame.
That was in 2012, when Cozart signed his first record deal. He was put under house arrest and, after subsequent scrapes with the law, was jailed for violating probation and send to a court-ordered drug rehab.
Then on March 26 this year, Cozart was at the home of his manager in Northfield when a 33-year-old man was shot there and seriously wounded. Chief Keef was in the car that drove the man to a hospital, one of his lawyers has confirmed.
Northfield Deputy Police Chief Claude Casaletto said Tuesday that his detectives have officially closed their investigation into the shooting without filing charges.
An unidentified person of interest in the case had been released in April after the shooting victim failed to show up at the police station for a lineup, officials said. The victim declined to press charges.
“We can’t tell them they have to do this, as it’s their choice,” Casaletto said.
The neighborhood has been quiet since the renter, Keef’s manager, Rovaun Manuel, moved out of the luxury home a few weeks following the incident, police said.
Cozart also drew the ire of neighbors in Northfield for driving an all-terrain vehicle around the property, and for apparently posing for a picture holding a gun in what appeared to be the bathroom of the mansion.
Also in March, Cozart was charged in Highland Park with DUI and driving with a suspended license and an uninsured motor vehicle. That case is pending.
In April, Cozart’s cousin and fellow rapper Mario Hess, also known as Blood Money or Big Glo, died in a hail of gunfire in Englewood.
Calls for comment from Cozart and his representatives were not returned. One of his attorneys, Leah Starkman, previously said Cozart believes he is being unfairly targeted because of his fame.
Berger is a freelance reporter; McCoppin and Cullotta are staff reporters. Staff reporter Gregory Trotter contributed.
rmccoppin@tribune.com
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June 10, 2014 article by Susan Berger, Robert McCoppin and Karen Ann Cullotta
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