Beyoncé Music Thief Pleads Guilty, Gets 2 Years in Prison

Kelvin Evans won’t be going to trial after all — but he will be going to prison. The Atlanta man accused of breaking into a vehicle belonging to Beyoncé’s choreographer and walking off with hard drives full of unreleased music pleaded guilty Tuesday in Fulton County Superior Court, bringing a close to one of the more jaw-dropping theft cases the music world has seen in years.

Evans, 40, entered guilty pleas to entering auto and criminal trespass before Senior Judge Jane C. Barwick, who sentenced him to five years total — two to be served behind bars, the rest on probation. The judge also ordered Evans to stay away from the Krog Street location where the theft occurred and from the victims involved in the case.

The timing was striking. Just weeks earlier, Evans had stood in court in March and turned down a plea deal that would have sent him to prison for five years. “I’m ready for trial now,” he told the court. Jury selection had already begun Monday when he reversed course and cut the deal — one that ultimately shaved three years off the sentence he’d been willing to risk at trial, where a conviction could have meant up to six years in confinement.

What Was Stolen — and Why It Mattered So Much

The theft happened on July 8, 2025, just days before Beyoncé was set to perform at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the Atlanta leg of her Cowboy Carter tour. Choreographer Christopher Grant and fellow dancer Diandre Blue had parked their rented 2024 Jeep Wagoneer in a parking deck on Krog Street around 8:09 p.m. When they returned less than an hour later, the rear window was shattered and their luggage was gone.

What was inside those bags made this far more than a routine smash-and-grab. Investigators say the stolen items included two MacBook laptops, Apple AirPods Max headphones, luxury clothing and accessories — and, most critically, hard drives and flash drives containing unreleased Beyoncé music, watermarked tracks, show footage, and past and future set lists. Grant also told police he was carrying what he described as “personal sensitive information” belonging to Beyoncé herself.

For any artist, that’s a nightmare. For Beyoncé — who has built her entire modern era around airtight secrecy, surprise drops, and total control of her creative output — it was on another level entirely.

Surveillance footage captured a red 2025 Hyundai Elantra connected to the crime. Investigators traced the vehicle to its owner, who told them Evans had used the car that day. Cameras later showed Evans, his niece, and a child removing black bags from the vehicle. Light fingerprints were also recovered from the scene. Evans was arrested by Hapeville police on August 26, 2025, and has been held in Fulton County Jail ever since. A grand jury indicted him in October, and he pleaded not guilty in January.

Prosecutors also noted that Evans is implicated in other car break-ins beyond this case.

The One Detail That Still Hangs Over Everything

Even with the guilty plea and sentencing done, there’s no clean ending here: none of the stolen property has been recovered. Not the laptops, not the hard drives, not the unreleased music. Atlanta police confirmed as much after Evans’ arrest, and nothing has changed since.

That means somewhere out there, those drives still exist — containing music, footage, and set lists that Beyoncé’s team never intended anyone outside their circle to hear or see. Whether any of it ever surfaces publicly remains an open question, and almost certainly the one her team is still losing sleep over.

Evans begins serving his two-year sentence with the stay-away order in place. The Cowboy Carter tour has long since moved on. But for the BeyHive, and for anyone watching how far the consequences of a single car break-in can reach, this case was never really just about a smashed window on Krog Street.