STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The family of

reacted with shock and disgust Wednesday when they learned that the alleged killer was reaching out on YouTube to raise cash for his legal defense.

Shyheim Franklin, 36, a Wu-Tang Clan cohort who once worked with hip hop's biggest names, surrendered to police Wednesday to answer for the New Year's Day crash, which killed Felipe Avila of Tompkinsville.

A day before his arrest, though, he took to YouTube, calling on his fans' "trust and honor," and asked them to send a check to his criminal defense attorney.

"Yo, to all of my family, friends and fans, reaching out, being (sic) support. You know, I'm in a lot of trouble right now and I need help for my legal defense so I can have a fair shot in court," Franklin says in the 90-second video, referring to himself at one point as "Killer Bee on the Swarm."





Franklin has rapped under the name Manchild, Little Shyheim and The Rugged Child.

As he speaks on video, a text crawl underneath him tells his would-be followers where to send their money.

"Thank you for your love, loyalty, respect, trust and honor," he says.

Asuncion Mendez, Avila's longtime girlfriend, railed against that message, saying in Spanish that anyone who gives him money is just as culpable in her mind.

"How's he going to ask for help because he killed somebody? He doesn't have consideration," she said, as her daughter, Tatiana, translated into English.

Avila's family sent his body back to Mexico Wednesday, Tatiana Mendez said.

Family friend Cesar Victoria said he's doing a fundraiser of his own -- for Avila's loved ones in Mexico. The show, which will take place Saturday night at a club at 108 Victory Blvd., will have a video tribute, and Victoria said he plans to sample Franklin's video so people there know what he's saying.

"He killed a friend to me, a brother to me. How he can do that, I can't believe," Victoria said after seeing the video.

Franklin was arraigned in Stapleton Criminal Court Wednesday afternoon on a single count of leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and ordered held on $250,000 bail until his next court date, on Tuesday.

That charge carries a maximum of seven years in prison if he's convicted at trial -- far too short, as far as Avila's loved ones are concerned.

"If he gets out in seven years, maybe he does the same thing," Tatiana Mendez said.

Franklin's lawyer, Leo Duval, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

On Jan. 1, at 5:07 a.m., Avila was headed to work at the Rosamaria Bakery on Vreeland Avenue in Port Richmond, driving a black 1996 Toyota Celica on Lafayette Avenue, Richmond Terrace-bound.

Franklin, meanwhile, was driving east on Cassidy Place in a 2003 Volvo S80, police allege. Police said he blew through a stop sign and slammed into Avila's car, then hit a parked Dodge Ram before getting out of the Volvo and running off.

The accident report identifies the Volvo's owner as Latoya Wallace, 30, of the 300 block of Westervelt Avenue. A police source said the father of her child is a friend of Franklin. Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful Wednesday.

Franklin was out on $10,000 bail at the time of the crash, after his April arrest on gun and drug possession charges.

Franklin put out his first album at 15 years old. He has worked with RZA and Tupac Shakur and shared the stage at Madison Square Garden with The Notorious B.I.G., and he has a film and television rA(c)sumA(c).

He also has a lengthy criminal history that includes serving 16 months of a two-year prison sentence for a 2002 second-degree attempted-robbery conviction.

Stories in the Advance archive and public records also detail his criminal history and his brushes with violence. He was the victim of a slashing in 1997, and in 1998, he received probation after he was found with a gun stolen from the LAPD six years prior.

In 1999, a 15-year-old boy was shot dead at a Stapleton nightclub during a release party for one of Franklin's CDs.

His arrest in April stemmed from a police search of his 185 St. Mark's Place apartment in St. George -- members of the Staten Island Gang Squad found a sock stuffed with a loaded .32 caliber Serrifile Inc. Terrier One revolver under his mattress, 41 glassines of heroin in a safe under his bed, a Xanax pill in a plastic zipper bag on his bedside table, and a scale alongside empty bags and glassines under his bed, court papers allege.

That case is still pending.

He professed his innocence in an April interview with the online publication HipHopDX: "Of course you know the NYPD have a history of not flying straight, you know what I'm saying?... There's a lot of illegal stuff that went down in the procedures that wasn't supposed to take place but my attorneys is on it and you know we gonna fight."

"I'm an artist but this happens to people everyday," he told HipHopDX. "Like I said, they don't always play fair. ... I'm innocent. And that's that."