West Michigan rapper accused of rape settles out of court.
When his accuser’s untimely death terminated the criminal investigation, West Michigan rapper Sean Ladd Powell (Suport, ŞLPXRT the Respectful Pedestrian, Lifeskillz) retaliated with defamation lawsuits against women who voiced support for the deceased over social media.
Failing to win monetary damages, Powell settled out of court. Meanwhile, the Grand Rapids arts and music community has been flooded with new testimony about Powell, habitual sexual harassment, and date rape drugs.
In September 2018, Kayla Danae Bolan, a Grand Rapids musician and head of the cello department at Triumph Music Academy, posted a detailed Facebook status alleging that rapper Sean Ladd Powell had drugged and raped her 10 years earlier.
Powell has been performing rap and hip hop for over a decade under the name ŞLPXRT the Respectful Pedestrian, ŞLPXRT, Lifeskillz, and sometimes Suport. He has 552 likes on Facebook and one monthly listener on Spotify.
Bolan’s post was controversial. While many of Powell’s supporters were furious, threatening (among other things) to bring “the largest defamation case in the history of Kent County” against Bolan, a large swath of the Grand Rapids music community shared her post and cut ties with Powell.
At least three other women spoke about their own similar experiences with Powell. Bolan filed a police report and planned to testify for another woman who was pressing charges against him.
However, a month after the report was filed, Bolan was found dead in a single-vehicle accident on 1–96, further complicating an already difficult case.
2008: Kayla Danae Bolan’s Story
The following account of Bolan’s assault is an allegation. Details are compiled from her Facebook post, the resulting police report (obtained via the Freedom of Information Act), and testimony of witnesses who asked to remain anonymous.
It was between the end of summer and the beginning of fall 2008. “Low” by Flo Rida was #1 on the Billboard charts, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight led the box office, and Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was poised to make history.
Bolan was around 17 at the time, smart as a whip, and gifted.
She’d played the cello since age seven. She was classically trained, and attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, Interlochen Arts Academy, and interned for a summer with St. Cecilia Music Society.
She wasn’t old enough to drink, but that evening she used a fake ID to join her co-workers at Billy’s Lounge on Wealthy St. in Eastown. Back then, the dance club featured live jazz, R&B, blues, and folk music most nights, with a bar staff one area veteran described as “douchebag bar stars.”
It was, and still remains, one of Sean Ladd Powell’s regular haunts.
Bolan nursed a single vodka cranberry for an hour or so before using the restroom.
Powell intercepted her there. He visited Billy’s almost nightly at that period, witnesses said, and one noted he often lingered close to the women’s restroom.
Powell recognized Bolan, he said, because he worked with her significant other at a local hotdog joint called Yesterdog.
Powell was 26, and she thought he seemed nice.
When the evening progressed, Bolan’s co-workers decided to drink at another bar. She was reluctant to join, afraid to be caught with a fake ID. Powell invited her to smoke weed at the house he rented, a half-mile west down Wealthy Street.
“I thought it was just going to be [about smoking weed],” Bolan wrote in her Facebook post. “Because in my head, I’m just another person. I blame myself all the time because I should have been more careful, I should have realized I was a target. ‘You’re weak, you’re a woman, this isn’t safe’ didn’t register in my head at the time. I thought I was invincible.”
She felt “odd” as soon as they were outside. She wasn’t drunk — she’d only had a single tall vodka cranberry. Her legs felt weak, and she leaned against the bar’s brick exterior for support.
“The fucked up part is I remember leaving the bar and feeling safe with him for a second,” Bolan wrote. “Because this guy seemed nice and honestly I was hoping to crash on someone’s couch because I didn’t have a way home.”
Instead of walking the half-mile to his house, Powell asked if they could drive there. She recalled being “thrown” into the back of the car and feeling limp. Wealthy Street, a historic road, is laid with cobblestones, and the ride was bumpy. Bolan said she wasn’t sure who was driving.
Something felt off.
She struggled to hold her head up the entire way.
When the car stopped, Powell held the still-dizzy Bolan up and brought her inside. She insisted on stopping to pet a dog in the kitchen before he put her on the living room couch.
She wanted to sleep.
Powell left the room, fumbled with something she couldn’t see, then returned and sat next to her with an empty Ziploc bag.
“Sorry,” he said with a shrug. “I guess I don’t have any weed.”
“At that moment, I started getting scared,” Bolan wrote. “[My body] didn’t feel normal. Why would this person ask me to smoke if he didn’t have any weed?”
She lay back on the couch, overcome with the urge to fall asleep.
When she woke up, she’d been moved to a twin mattress on the floor of Powell’s bedroom. Multiple witnesses corroborated the description — Powell‘s twin mattress was on the floor at the time.
The allegations continue:
Bolan’s clothes were gone.
He was raping her.
She couldn’t speak or scream.
She wasn’t restrained, but her arms and legs felt too heavy to move, likely the result of a drug that impacted her central nervous system.
“I was confused, scared, and wished I could just die,” Bolan wrote.
She started crying and closed her eyes so that she couldn’t see what was happening. She lost consciousness once more.
The next time she came around, she was still naked on the mattress. Powell was sitting in a chair across the room, watching her, “as if he had been waiting.” He had taken her Adderall prescription from her purse.
“You gave me these last night,” he said. “Thanks.”
Adderall is a Schedule II controlled substance used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy. It’s addictive — if Powell had in fact taken Bolan’s prescription, it likely wasn’t the only time he abused the medication. This aligns with anonymous witness allegations that Powell regularly abused off-prescription stimulants recreationally around that time, and it often made him short-tempered and irritable, and that his peers often felt compelled to “walk on eggshells” around him.
If Bolan’s prescription bottle was even half full this could’ve held a street value of around $100 or more.
Afraid to stay and argue, Bolan dressed quickly and left.
She was too scared to report the assault and didn’t go to the hospital for a medical examination. Traumatized, she went to a friend’s house. Her friends warned her that she would be punished for the fake ID and underage drinking.
Later on, she messaged Powell and confronted him about the incident and asked if she should be aware of any STDs. He denied anything had occurred, and refused to acknowledge the night in general. She blocked him.
As time went on, she heard stories through the grapevine that Powell had been saying: “That girl thinks I raped her.”
As the years passed, Bolan and Powell encountered each other now and again.
One year, he showed up at her birthday party — she screamed at him to leave.
Much later in life, Bolan was forced to hide in a public restroom because of a panic attack when Powell unexpectedly appeared as a waiter during a date she was on.
“He was a ‘nice guy,’” Bolan wrote. “I never kissed him. He just fucked me. He took away my innocence. He took away the ‘me’ that I used to know.
“I felt like I had to be really cold after that. I failed in school. I started losing sight of my goals. I stopped playing the cello. I started drinking all the time. I became irresponsible with my money, where before I had established a savings account. I started dating people that were verbally and physically abusive. I completely detached myself from sex. I lost myself.”
The Unheard Voices
While Powell’s supporters were quick to label the long gap between the report and the alleged assault suspicious, it’s actually incredibly common for survivors to stay silent after a rape.
In the wake of sexual violence, survivors face a barrage of reasons to repress the incident. Rape is the single most under-reported crime — 63% of all cases are never reported.
Survivors must reckon with the fear of victim-blaming and accusations of false reporting — even though the prevalence of false reporting is less than 10%, and according to some studies, as low as 2%.
The examination process after rape is often retraumatizing and invasive. Plus, if the survivor has used the bathroom or has showered, much of the evidence may have been washed away. Furthermore, many date rape drugs are no longer medically detectable after even a few hours.
On top of this, only 20% of sexual assault reports actually result in arrest and roughly 2% end with the perpetrator incarcerated. Rapists are the least likely type of criminal to go to jail or prison.
Knowledge of this helps persuade survivors that it would be easier to just attempt to move on with their lives.
But repression can cause significant mental health problems.
81% of women and 35% of men who survive sexual assault develop either short term or long term PTSD, resulting in the symptoms Bolan described, such as sexual apathy, impulsivity, and self-destructive behavior.
2013: Katie McKenzie’s Story
If Powell slipped Rohypnol, Ketamine, GHB, or another “club drug” in Bolan’s drink, it wouldn’t be the only time he was accused of such behavior. The following allegations are compiled from testimony by Katie McKenzie. A police report regarding the incident was filed in 2019.
For clarity, please note that McKenzie uses “they/them” pronouns.
Once again, this story starts at Billy’s Lounge, this time on October 11, 2013.
McKenzie, who was 23 at the time, had been dancing, drinking, and listening to music with a group of friends including Bill Bramish (whose name has been changed for the purpose of this story).
The group had rallied outside the bar at the end of the evening when Powell arrived riding what McKenzie remembers as a motorcycle or scooter. He was 32 then.
McKenzie and Powell were previously acquainted. He’d flirted with them online, and sent them nudes. He’d pressured them to send photos in return, but they were hesitant at first.
“I eventually agreed even though I was slightly annoyed that he kept asking,” McKenzie said. “I didn’t have the self-confidence or understanding of what was and wasn’t appropriate at the time”
Bramish offered to host the group for a party, and so they left and relocated at his house — Powell agreed to rendezvous with them there, after he made a pitstop for beer, and he left separately.
At Bramish’s house, people hung out, drank beers, and smoked weed; some took shots of tequila from a bottle on the coffee table. McKenzie sat on the couch in the living room and watched Drop Dead Fred on the TV, only half-paying attention to the conversation in the room. Bramish sat in the love seat next to the couch.
Powell arrived with a six-pack of beer and dropped into a chair on the opposite end of the room. When he spotted McKenzie, he started to text flirtatiously from a distance.
“I was kind of half responsive to it because I was a little tipsy, but nothing major,” McKenzie said.
People started to leave at the end of the night, and McKenzie moved to the love seat next to Bramish. Powell took this opportunity to offer them each a beer, and they accepted.
Bramish went to the kitchen to look for a bottle opener. While he was gone, Powell said: “Oh, I guess it’s a twist-off.”
The beer was open when he handed it to McKenzie.
They waited for Bramish to come back. He was saying goodbye to the last few people in the house, which meant only he, McKenzie, and Powell were left. It was a cold fall and the room was chilly, so McKenzie didn’t drink the beer right away — they asked to borrow a sweatshirt from Bramish and he gave them a tattered Brewery Vivant hoodie.
After a while, McKenzie drank a little bit of the beer, but not much. They weren’t a large fan of beer and didn’t like the taste.
Powell wasn’t pleased.
He repeatedly asked if they planned to finish the beer, getting more insistent each time. “It’s great,” he said. “You should give it another shot.”
Annoyed, McKenzie brushed him off. They had started to feel unusually tired, and they felt the need to lie down so they moved to the couch and stretched out.
Bramish mentioned he was tired too.
“It’s okay if you go to bed,” Powell told Bramish.
“Nah, I’m fine,” Bramish said.
Things started to get a little fuzzy for McKenzie around then. Powell continued to insist that Bramish could go to bed before becoming frustrated about something, taking his six-pack, and storming out of the house.
McKenzie and Bramish spoke a little longer; then he went to bed and McKenzie fell asleep on the couch.
McKenzie didn’t wake up there.
They woke up on their own living-room floor with a pounding headache, feeling like they’d “been hit by a truck,” and no clue how they’d gotten there.
Their car was in their driveway. They had no memory of anything after falling asleep on the couch. They weren’t sure if someone had given them a ride, or if they’d walked over a mile to their car from Bramish’s house.
“Wow, you were trashed when you got in this morning,” their partner told them. “You just fell on the floor and stayed there.”
McKenzie thought the incident was bizarre but as time went on they tried to forget about it. When Bolan posted her own experience with Powell, McKenzie, horrified, felt the final puzzle piece had fallen into place.
“I’m like 98% sure he drugged me,” McKenzie said. “And if Bramish hadn’t stayed there, he would’ve assaulted me.”
Interestingly enough, a photo on Powell’s own social media confirms part of McKenzie’s narrative. They stated that Powell left Billy’s Lounge empty-handed, stopped somewhere to make a purchase, and arrived with a brand new six-pack of beer.
Powell posted an Instagram photo on the date of the party while making a late-night purchase at Smitty’s Specialty Beverage — a liquor bodega less than 500 feet from Billy’s Lounge.
When publicly faced with McKenzie’s accusations, Powell claimed he never met them at a party. He was over two years sober in October 2013, and he had no reason to be there.
It’s important to note McKenzie’s narrative never states Powell entered Billy’s Lounge, nor that he drank the beer he purchased — only that he provided it to others. However, it’s dishonest to state it was unusual for Powell to spend time at bars or parties with alcohol present — the SXLPRT Instagram confirms he was at venues (including Billy’s Lounge) and parties with alcohol several times a month in 2013.
Not an Isolated Incident
On September 28, 2018, Bolan shared a Facebook post that began: “Trigger Waring [sic]: I’m posting about my rape in as much detail as I can remember [sic].”
The post outed Powell as her rapist.
Later, she included an addendum that read: “After I posted this, I was messaged that Sean told his next victim about me and confessed to drugging and raping me before he raped her. She is filing charges against him and I will be testifying if it goes to court.”
On October 5, 2018, Bolan filed a report with the Grand Rapids Police Department (GRPD).
In the report, Officer Wendy Dyer confirms that Bolan had received a message from an individual alleging that Powell had raped her after he confessed to raping Bolan. Dyer took photos of the messages; these are now in possession of the GRPD.
The report also catalogs a message to Bolan from another alleged victim, stating that they “woke up in that piece of shit’s home back around the same age not knowing how the hell I got there.”
The second victim thanked Bolan for “standing up for all of us.”
Both victims’ names are redacted.
Another Facebook post, which was created after this article was originally published on December 25, 2019, alleged that Powell had groped a woman at Billy’s Lounge outside the restroom several years earlier.
On November 22, 2018, at 3:22 a.m. — Thanksgiving morning — Bolan was killed in a single-vehicle crash after her vehicle left I-96 near Plymouth Avenue.
Unable to proceed without a plaintiff, the GRPD closed the case.
The 2019 Lawsuit (Or, “Sean Powell Isn’t Famous”)
On August 22, 2019, Powell filed a defamation lawsuit against a friend of Bolan’s named Lana Schol (another fake name, for the purpose of this story) who publicly shared Bolan’s post about Powell on social media, and wrote additional Facebook posts about his behavior.
In the lawsuit, Powell’s lawyer made several specific claims:
- Powell is not a famous or professional musician. His primary income comes from his job at a local restaurant. His music can be considered nothing more than a hobby. He is not successful, popular, influential, or relevant enough to be considered a “public figure.”
- Because Powell is a private individual, Schol violated Powell’s reasonable expectation of personal privacy by posting “unfounded” public accusations of sexual assault.
- Powell lives in a state of constant fear, worried when the next post will come.
- Powell was harmed emotionally and psychologically by Schol’s posts and is “living in distress.”
- Powell was harmed economically by Schol’s posts, because several venues have canceled his shows and many people in the music community no longer wish to associate with him.
A defamation case as a private individual is much easier to win, because the plaintiff is only required to prove that the defendant’s claims were untrue and that the defendant acted negligently. However, a public figure must prove that the defendant acted intentionally recklessly and negligently.
The admission that Powell isn’t a public figure directly contradicts his defenders who claimed that Bolan was motivated by the “status and attention that comes with accusing a popular rapper,” or that the two did have intercourse in 2008 but it was consensual and Bolan was simply enamored with celebrity (a claim that also holds little water because Powell had even less presence in the scene at the time).
It’s unclear why Powell chose to sue Schol in particular. In the time after Bolan shared her story, and especially after her death, dozens of people across West Michigan shared the post. There wasn’t anything outwardly different about Schol in this regard
Powell and Schol had interacted at least once before the lawsuit, when they argued on an April 5, 2019, Facebook comment thread, in which Schol had once again resurfaced Bolan’s allegations against Powell.
An argument ensued. Powell accused Schol of “getting involved in other’s drama”, running an internet smear campaign, and “looking fat in a bathing suit.” He also demanded to know who Bolan had spoken with about him before she died.
Powell’s friend Patricio Gonzalez joined in and mocked Bolan’s death by sharing GIFs of crash-test dummies. Gonzalez wrote, “report all crimes that have been committed against you then try not to accidentally kill yourself,” and “fuck these crash test dummies” and referred to Bolan as a “drunk whore.”
These interactions are the only discernible reason Powell chose Schol for the defamation case above others who promoted Bolan’s story.
The case was handled by Judge Paul J. Sullivan at the Kent County 17th Circuit Court. Powell was not awarded damages and the case was settled privately.
After Survival: “Life is Good and Shit”
Bolan lived the latter half of the 2010s like a lion. Her life wasn’t devoid of pain — but where there were wounds, she was able to heal, and to grow from them.
“Thankfully [in 2016] I met a man who was very much like me,” Bolan wrote. “He had been through some shit too. He validated me. He reminded me of who I am and the girl who I had buried deep down. I’m getting better.
“But it needs to be said being raped is like getting a life sentence. A sentence that tests who you are to your core, and how every relationship, friendship, and job is going to affect you. Please talk about it with your children. Talk about it with adults too. Not talking about it is what’s keeping it alive.”
Bolan had other challenges in her life. For one, she suffered from congenital heart disease. Her third open-heart surgery was in October of 2017, and while it was initially successful, complications followed. She developed Wenckebach phenomenon (also known as Second Degree AV Block Mobitz).
Her heart fell out of rhythm. She couldn’t walk, stand, or keep food down for weeks. Most movement was excruciating. She almost died of dehydration, and at one point she went blind for an hour.
A pacemaker solved the problem.
After that, things changed.
Bolan left her job at an accounting firm to perform and teach cello. She began studying Chinese language and literature at GVSU, and In December 2017, she became the head of the cello department at Triumph Music Academy, the highest-rated music school in West Michigan.
Bolan’s 28th birthday was October 31, 2018, and she seemed in good spirits. She wrote a post discussing her heart surgery publicly for the first time.
“[I’ve been] reflecting on how far I’ve come this year,” Bolan wrote. “I’ve kept my promise to myself to never again settle for anything. Not a job, not a person, not a damn thing.
“[I realize] that I matter, my experiences matter, and that life is so precious. I’m proud of my new scar, my new family, my new home, the new music I’m making, my new friends, and my old friends.
“Life is good and shit.”
When Bolan died, she had over 150 mutual Facebook friends with Powell — a fact she was aware of, and furious about.
She remained outraged that he was well regarded by many in the community, and that others like him were often protected because of status, wealth, nepotism or popularity.
“I am not afraid of anyone who is going to try and come after me over this,” she wrote the day she filed the report. “I will no longer live in hiding for his comfort. Your resistance furthers your stupidity and blind loyalty, in my eyes.
“I was there. This happened to me. You don’t know your friend as well as you thought you did.
“I made it known because we need to start talking about these things. Too many women are being hurt.
“The reputation of your beloved friend is not more important than the safety and well being of women in this community.
“Period.”
She ended with a warning:
“A time is coming very soon where men will no longer be able to hide behind our shame.
“I refuse to live in a world where my silence makes his world easy and comfortable.”
Sean Ladd Powell still regularly performs at Billy’s Lounge and elsewhere in West Michigan under the name ŞLPXRT the Respectful Pedestrian.
About the Authors
If you have additional information related to this story please e-mail TheKreisauCircle616@gmail.com. If you have additional information about sexual assault or date rape drugs at Billy’s Lounge or in the West Michigan music community, you can submit tips with a complete guarantee of confidentiality here.
Kay VanAntwerpen
Kay VanAntwerpen is a genderqueer journalist and musician from Grand Rapids, Michigan. They formerly wrote for Mlive Media Group, Grand Rapids magazine, Revue magazine, and Rapid Growth Media. Now they do the freelance thing. Follow them on Twitter (@RainbowDethClub) and download their band’s most recent album, King of the Losing Side, here. Download their friend’s much better album here. They are a recognized authority on the film Gigli despite having never seen it.
Finn Jaskowski
Finn Jaskowski is a student at GVSU, pursuing a dual bachelor's in anthropology and psychology. They create internet content about social justice, mental health, and disabilities. Originally from the small town of Boyne Falls in Northern Michigan, they currently reside in Grand Rapids and city life suits them well. Cute dogs make them cry.
Additional research, reporting, editing, and professional advising contributed by The Kreisau Circle — a loose network of volunteer media professionals contributing to non-profit special interest stories related to anti-fascism and abuses of power.
