NEW YORK — A New York drill rapper with ties to musician Fivio Foreign has been busted for attempted murder, accused of shooting a man in the leg following an April fender-bender in the Bronx, The New York Daily News has learned.
New York Police Department detectives grabbed “Top Ten” rapper Gino Mondana as he sat aboard a departing Thursday flight at Newark International Airport two months after the South Bronx shooting, a police source said.
Port Authority cops emptied the plane after the NYPD pinged the suspect’s phone to locate Mondana, whose real name is Tray Stroman, aboard the United Airlines plane, according to a PA police source.
The rapper was taken into custody, and was awaiting extradition to New York for arraignment on charges that also include weapons possession and menacing, according to Bronx court documents.
Stroman is a member of Fivio Foreign’s entourage and an affiliate of the G-Stone Crips street gang, the police source said.
Last year, Stroman signed with Foreign Side Records, which Fivio Foreign helped start, and claimed in an interview with Hip Hop Weekly that he was Foreign’s younger brother.
Foreign, who rose to the top of the drill rap scene in 2019 with his hit “Big Drip,” was on tour on the west coast when Stroman was arrested.
Police said Stroman was involved into a minor car accident with a 22-year-old man on Southern Blvd. near Leggett Ave. about 4:30 a.m. on April 1. As the rapper and his victim exchanged information, the 31-year-old Stroman offered to sidestep the insurance companies and pay for any repairs himself.
“I have the money, let me go inside to get it,” Stroman assured the second man, according to the court document.
But he returned from a nearby building just a few minutes later, pulled a handgun and “fired multiple shots in the (other driver’s) direction,” striking the man in the left leg.
Stroman then sped off in his 2007 Mazda, cops said. The other motorist was taken to Lincoln Hospital, where he was treated and released.
In addition to the shooting charges, Stroman faces an additional assault charge for a domestic violence incident last October where he allegedly attacked his girlfriend during an argument over their son’s sneakers, police sources said.
In an odd footnote to the arrest, Stroman collected $18,000 in a 2019 settlement with the city related to an oft-sued NYPD sergeant who busted him on trumped-up charges in Brownsville.
Stroman was described in a story at the time as a barber shop employee.
Police continue to focus on the drill rap scene. The videos where rappers flash guns and wads of cash and lyrics in which they belittle and call out rival gang members have been fueling the spate of gun violence across the city, police believe.
In April, drill rap music videos helped cops corral 20 ruthless Bronx gang members who were linked to a handful of murders and attempted murders including the shooting death last year of a 20-year-old Bronx woman who was gunned down at close range in an apartment known to police as a gang hangout.
In February, Foreign was among 15 drill stars who sat down with Mayor Eric Adams to “start a dialogue” about the music and the culture. At the time, Adams called on social media companies like YouTube to take down drill videos, which led to Jayquan McKenley’s death. McKenley, who performed under the name Chii Wvttz, was shot dead after being ambushed outside a Bedford-Stuyvesant recording studio, police said.
It was not immediately clear if Stroman attended the meeting with Adams.
———
