Who Is Juelz Santana? Rapper Arrested After Bringing Gun To The Airport

Rapper Juelz Santana turned himself in to the police on Monday after trying to bring a gun onto a plane. The incident occurred Friday when Santana tried to pass through the security checkpoint at Newark Liberty International Airport with a gun in his carry-on bag.

Before the star was able to continue on his way to the gates, a Transportation Security Administration agent X-rayed his bag, saw that it contained a weapon and called Port Authority police to handle the situation. Realizing what they had found in his luggage, the rapper ran from the scene and left the airport in a taxi.

“Upon our discovery of the firearm, the individual left the checkpoint and went back into the public area,” the TSA said in a statement, while also noting that one of the agents “froze the bag safely inside the X-Ray tunnel” after noticing it.

According to a statement from Port Authority, two bags were left behind and the recovered weapon was a Derringer .38-caliber handgun. Later that night, police in Totowa, New Jersey were sent to Santana’s home regarding the matter, but he wasn’t there when they arrived.

In the early hours of Monday, Santana decided to stop evading law enforcement and turn himself in. He was arrested by Port Authority police and charged with unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of a controlled substance and an undisclosed federal warrant, according to NBC New York. He’s set to be in front of a federal judge later on Monday.

The 36-year-old rapper has been in trouble with the law before, with three incidents in 2011. He was found with loaded weapons without a permit and bags of marijuana during one event, pleaded guilty to third-degree of making a terroristic threat to commit an act of violence for another and pleaded guilty to fourth-degree obstruction of the law for the final incident of that year.

Santana started in the music scene when he was 12, in the duo Draft Pick, which was signed with Priority Records. From there, he continued working his way through the industry and releasing his debut album in 2003. Aside from music, he also starred on VH1’s “Love & Hip Hop: New York” from 2011 to 2012 and returned to the series in 2016.