Motherboard reviewed a bevvy of bodycam footage and the search warrant that underpinned the raid on Afroman’s residence in August 2022.
Officers from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio raided the residence of rapper Afroman last summer in part because a confidential informant told them Afroman has a “dungeon” where he keeps women locked up and forces them to defecate and urinate in a bucket as punishment, according to a search warrant and body camera footage shared with Motherboard. When showed the relevant section of the warrant, Afroman’s record label said “Lol. That is completely fabricated and untrue. Afroman doesn’t even have a basement. Afroman has a movie coming out within the next few weeks regarding this situation, and will be filing a lawsuit against the confidential informant.” (According to property website Redfin, Afroman’s residence address has a “crawl-space” style basement, which is typically a much smaller space than one a person is able to stand in).
Dot Muniz of Music Access, Inc., Afroman’s distributor, told Motherboard on Afroman’s behalf that “Afroman kindly asked me on behalf of all publications that inquire, that these allegations are entirely false. If any indication would adhere true, he would have been arrested during his unlawful police raid.”
The search warrant claims that Afroman has a basement in which Afroman “keeps women locked in, forcing them to urinate and defecate in a bucket as punishment for upsetting or disobeying him.” The search warrant claims that this basement is referred to as “the dungeon.” This information came from a confidential informant, the search warrant says. The warrant says officers are to search for drugs, but it also states that they are looking for evidence of the crime of “kidnapping.”
The hours-long search of his residence turned up only a few thousand dollars cash, a colorless glass jar containing “green leafy vegetation,” THC wax, and a few pipes. Afroman has not been charged with any crime.
The news is the latest episode in an ever growing saga between Afroman, whose real name is Joseph Edgar Foreman, and the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. After the raid in August 2022, Afroman made multiple songs and music videos about the event using footage of the raid taken from his home security systems; some officers have sued him in response in a legal case that is ongoing.
Motherboard also reviewed bodycam footage taken by officers at the scene, which largely shows them milling about, prodding at floorboards and wall panels to see if anything is concealed behind them, and rifling through mundane objects like binders full of compact discs. One of the officers, for instance, pulls up some green carpeting; they also get into a locked garage by pulling a window air conditioning unit through the window and jumping through it. At one point Afroman’s ex-wife shows up and, bemused, asks why the cops performed a forced entry when they could have simply asked to be allowed in.
