Prison-Bound Joliet Rapper's Family and Friends Rally to His Side at Sentencing Hearing

Deondray “Star Money” Hall is certain to be a rap celebrity, his best friend said, it’s only a “matter of time.”

But that time will include anywhere from two to 10 years in prison when Hall is sentenced for attempting to escape from the police.

Hall, 24, was arrested along with Stephen Hayes, also 24, in May. Hayes and Hall were riding together in a Sport Utility vehicle when the cops pulled them over. Prior to the stop, police said, Hall tossed a pistol out of the SUV.

After they were taken into custody, a handcuffed Hall tried to slip out of a moving squad car but his escape bid was thwarted by Police Officer James Kilgore.

Prosecutors dropped the charges against Hayes. Hall pleaded guilty to escape in December. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed weapons charges.

Hall had been released from prison just four months before his arrest.

Hall’s best friend, college student Ronald Byrd, said the rapper is the “star” of the “Star Money Gang,” a “movement” comprised of family, friends and fans. Byrd also said Hall is far and away the most successful of Joliet’s rappers and other local performers imitate the Star Money Gang.

“They mimic what we do, as far as the party buses,” he said. “They try, but they don’t even come close to our movement.”

Byrd shot a documentary about Hall for a school project. The video begins with Hall’s release from prison in January.

Hall teared up after his attorney, Jeff Tomczak, started playing the documentary during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing. In the short video, Hall tells of getting shot in the arm and how the .45-caliber bullet entered his torso and remains lodged in his liver.

“In that situation, I stayed strong,” Hall said in the video. The average person would have got weak or panicked, you know what I’m saying,” he said. “By the grace of God I ain’t panicked.”

Despite his dozens of gang tattoos and videos that show him rapping about the many murderers he wants freed from prison, Tomczak suggested Hall was merely a performer taking “artistic license.”

In fact, Tomczak told Joliet police Detective Sgt. Darrell Gavin, the law took notice of Hall because of his gangsta rap videos.

“It had something to do with his rap videos that drew the attention of the Joliet Police Department, right?” Tomczak said. Gavin told him that was incorrect.

During the hearing, eight Joliet police officers, a state trooper and a Will County deputy recalled Hall’s repeated run-ins with the law beginning when he was 14, telling how they caught him with guns and drugs, and the times he fled from the cops.

But Hall started to focus on his rap career even before he was released from prison, his friends and family said. And once he got out, he worked hard to record music, perform shows and sell merchandise.

“He wanted his rap career,” said Hall’s mother, Tamela Clayton. “He said, ‘Mom, I’m going to do it.’”

Hall saw success in the months between his release from prison and his return to jail, Byrd said, and managed to get represented by the mother of rap star Waka Flocka Flame.

“I feel like we’re the last of a dying breed. We’re different,” said Byrd.

“He represents the struggle,” he said.

Hall’s sentencing hearing was scheduled to resume next month.

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