A man who was previously convicted of murdering the rapper Pop Smoke was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison for smuggling fentanyl into an Los Angeles County juvenile facility.Deijae Jester, 21, pleaded no contest to possessing 25 fentanyl-laced pills that his mother smuggled into Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall during a visit on Dec. 14, 2025.The 2020 killing of Pop Smoke, whose real name was Bashar Jackson, occurred when Jester was 15 years old, according to a sentencing memo written by prosecutors. After his conviction for the homicide, prosecutors said, Jester was confined in the Sylmar facility, which has been beset with drug abuse, violence and absent staff. During a preliminary hearing in 2021, Los Angeles Police Department detectives testified that Jester and three others broke into Jackson’s Hollywood Hills rental and accosted the rapper in a shower. Pop Smoke, a rising New York rapper, was fatally shot February 19, 2020. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Detectives learned what happened next from Jester himself. Placed in a jail cell wired with hidden microphones, Jester bragged to his cellmate that when Jackson tried to fight back, he pistol-whipped the rapper and shot him three times in the back.The killers made off with Jackson’s diamond-encrusted watch, which they hawked for $2,000, a detective said at the hearing.Jester, a reputed member of the 107 Hoover Criminals gang called “Lil Bam Bam,” was convicted of Jackson’s murder in 2023, according to the prosecutors’ memo.While held at the juvenile hall in Sylmar, Jester met his mother, Nickia Randall, for the first time, his lawyer wrote in a sentencing memo. According to the memo, Randall gave birth to Jester while she was jailed on homicide charges.“Deijae was literally set up for failure,” his lawyer, Theida Salazar, wrote.Jester was raised by his paternal grandmother. When Randall was released from prison in 2021 after serving a lengthy sentence, her son was in juvenile hall on a murder charge, according to Salazar’s memo.Randall, now 48, was allowed to visit her son despite having prior convictions for manslaughter, assault and cruelty to a child, and having a warrant for her arrest issued by San Bernardino County authorities, according to an investigative report.During the visit, guards saw Randall try to pass a blue balloon to her son, a deputy probation officer wrote in the report. They seized the balloon, which contained 25 blue pills and a “small amount of blue powder,” the report said.Randall hasn’t entered a plea to the narcotics charges because she is in custody in San Bernardino County, Deputy Dist. Atty. Nathalie Garcia said.Investigators obtained footage of prior visits and listened to recorded calls in which Jester and his mother discussed smuggling contraband into the facility, according to the report.Jester had been involved in “numerous narcotic-related incidents” in juvenile hall, including an overdose that required him to be revived with Narcan, the report said.Jester called his mother after she was caught smuggling the fentanyl.“I don’t really give a f—,” he said in the recorded call, according to the report. “I’m going to come home regardless.”Garcia argued Jester should receive the longest punishment allowed by law — five years — because he’d squandered an earlier chance at redemption. His adult co-defendant in Jackson’s killing was sentenced to 29 years, but juveniles, even those convicted of murder, cannot be held in custody in California beyond their 20s.“What did he do?” Garcia asked. “He ended up trying to smuggle fentanyl.”Salazar said Jester had worked hard in juvenile hall to earn a high school diploma and had resolved to stay out of trouble. Jester is now a father himself; his son, now 5, was born shortly after his arrest, Salazar wrote. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge P. Tamu Usher said she considered Jester’s age and difficult upbringing when deciding how much time he should serve in prison. But Jester had shown sophistication in coordinating with his mother and another youth the smuggling of a dangerous and even lethal narcotic he no doubt intended to sell, the judge said. “Your customer base was other minors,” she told Jester.She settled on a four-year term that will be served in state prison, not a juvenile facility. When she pronounced the sentence, Jester, now 6 feet 2, bowed his head, bit his lip and nodded. In a phone call cited in the report, Jester promised his mother: “I know what I signed up for. Ain’t nothing to explain and cry about. I’m going to do my time like a man.”
