Diabolique Paris Johnson – Photo: Dearborn Police Department.
A rapper and porn star from Indianapolis has been charged with robbing a gay man he met on Grindr and killing another gay man he allegedly lured through the dating app.
Diabolique Paris Johnson, 34, stands accused of committing an armed robbery that occurred on Sept. 1, 2020 at a hotel in Dearborn, Mich., and the killing of Joshua Smelser inside Smelser’s Detroit home on Sept. 5. He also faces weapons charges related to the alleged crimes.
Johnson, who goes by Chuck Da MF Buck in his rap career, and Chuck Da Dollasign on adult entertainment websites where he has performed in pornographic videos, appeared in court for a probable cause hearing earlier this month, where he entered a plea of not guilty, according to court records.
He is currently being held without bond, and is next scheduled to appear in Detroit’s 36th District Court on April 8 for a preliminary hearing on the felony murder and weapons charges.
Johnson was charged with the robbery last year, but wasn’t in custody at the time the charges were handed down. He was arrested in Indianapolis on Dec. 4, where he was held on the robbery charge before being extradited to Michigan earlier this month.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy and the Fair Michigan Justice Project, which seeks justice for LGBTQ victims of crime, claim Johnson targeted gay men using the dating app. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who created a Hate Crimes Unit in her office to investigate bias-motivated crimes, is working closely with Worthy’s office to help prosecute the crime.
“It is troubling that the perpetrator of these vicious acts apparently used online dating apps to locate and target his victims,” Fair Michigan President Alanna Maguire said in a statement. “Michigan’s LGBTQ communities know that the Fair Michigan Justice Project, along with Michigan’s county prosecutors and law enforcement officials, stand ready to aggressively investigate and prosecute these brutal crimes.”
Grindr has agreed to pay £26 million -- or about $35 million -- to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of users in the United Kingdom who allege that the U.S.-based gay dating app shared highly sensitive personal information, including some users' HIV statuses, with advertising companies.
The settlement ends a legal battle that began when the U.K. law firm Austen Hays filed a claim in the High Court of England and Wales in April 2024, accusing Grindr of violating U.K. privacy laws. The lawsuit alleged that Grindr improperly shared users' personal information mainly before April 3, 2018, and between May 25, 2018, and April 7, 2020.
Jonathan McKinsey, a transgender engineering executive at The New York Times, was allegedly killed by his estranged wife's parents on September 26 amid a contentious custody dispute.
McKinsey, 40, the Times' head of engineering and games player experiences, was shot multiple times shortly after 3 p.m. at Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Responding to calls from witnesses, Dublin police arrested Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, the parents of McKinsey's estranged wife, Candice Jang, reports NBC News.
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