Lil Durk’s murder-for-hire trial opens in LA

LOS ANGELES (CN) — The murder-for-hire trial of Chicago-based rapper Lil Durk got underway Monday in a federal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles, with lawyers for both sides presenting their opening arguments.“This case is about revenge, stalking and premeditated murder,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Weiner told the jury.On a Friday afternoon in August 2022, another rapper named Quando Rondo was getting gas at a station across the street from the Beverly Center, along with his cousin, 24-year-old Saviay’a Robinson. Out of nowhere, three masked men, all in black, emerged from an alleyway with guns drawn, wildly sprayed Rondo’s escalade with bullets and then disappeared. Rondo, whose real name is Tyquian Bowman, emerged unscathed, but Robinson was hit with four bullets and died shortly thereafter.According to prosecutors, the shooting was revenge for another killing, that of Chicago-based rapper Dayvon Bennett, better known as King Von, a friend of Lil Durk. In 2020, Rondo and Von got into a fistfight in Atlanta. A member of Rondo’s entourage pulled out a gun and shot Von, killing him. Weiner said 33-year-old Lil Durk, whose real name is Durk Banks, “became consumed with revenge.” His fans, Weiner said, urged him to “slide for Von” — street slang for avenging one’s death.Banks, who lives in Encino with his wife and kids, is a pioneer of a hip-hop sub-genre known as drill music. He won a Grammy in 2024 and runs a record label, Only the Family, or OTF, which Weiner accused of functioning as a criminal gang.Prosecutors say Banks tasked three men with killing Rondo: his “right-hand man” and personal assistant, Kavon Grant; Kacey Hester, a rapper known as OTF Jam, and Deondre Wilson, a lesser known rapper known as DeDe. Banks flew them out to California, where Wilson then hired two more henchmen, David Lindsey and Keith Jones. According to prosecutors, the five men spent days following Rondo around Los Angeles, waiting for the perfect time to strike, while Banks waited by the phone. When the gunmen finally made their move, they missed Rondo but hit Robinson.After the shooting, prosecutors say Wilson, Lindsey and Jones all went to In-N-Out Burger for dinner.Wilson and Lindsey are being tried along with Banks as co-defendants. Hester, Grant and Jones have all pleaded guilty and will testify at their trial.Hester, Weiner said, is “a cold-blooded killer” who will testify that he was “deployed as a hitman.”In her own opening statement, Banks’ attorney, Marissa Goldberg, said he “had nothing to do” with the murder, which she said was masterminded by Grant, whose cousin was King Von. The two were, Goldberg said, “as close as two men could possibly be.” Grant was with Von when he was shot, and drove his cousin to the hospital. According to Goldberg, Von asked Grant, with his dying breaths, “Why did you let me get shot? Why didn’t you do something?”Grant, Goldberg said, “had ties to the criminal underworld,” and access to Banks’ credit cards. It was he stole the car, secured the rental car and the fake license plate, the guns and even the ski masks, purchased from REI.“He did all of this,” Goldberg said.As for Banks, she said, there was very little to tie him to the shooting — other than the testimony of Grant and the other two cooperating witnesses, all of whom have pled guilty to murder and are hoping for reduced sentences. And there is no evidence that Banks or indeed anyone else paid or promised to pay any of the shooters.“There is no money to follow,” Goldberg told the jury. “There’s no evidence of a payment, no evidence of a promise.”Wilson’s attorney, Craig Harbaugh, told the jury that his client was simply a passenger in the vehicle who had nothing to do with the shooting.“Kavon Grant was the perpetrator,” Harbaugh told the jury. “Kavon Grant went to LA to pursue his vendetta against Quando Rondo … he set up everything.”Wilson, his attorney said, traveled to California thinking it would be an opportunity to record some music and hang out with some musicians more successful than himself — only upon arriving did he realize that there was a murder plot. He had invited Jones and Lindsey along for the trip, not as henchmen, but to be part of an entourage, Harbaugh said. Though he was a passenger in the BMW where the shooters emerged from, he was given neither a gun nor a ski mask.Lindsey’s attorney, Tillet Mills, made a similar argument to the jury. The shooting, he said, had very little to do with Lindsey, who had never been paid for the murder.“Where’s the money?” Mills asked. “Where’s the hire in the murder for hire?”The three cooperating witnesses, he said, were “filling in a blank” when they named him as one of the shooters.The trial is expected to last about three weeks, during which jurors will see surveillance footage, text messages and hear about Banks’ rap lyrics, some of which, prosecutors will argue, are incriminating. On “Ahhh Ha,” Banks sang: “Don’t respond to shit with Von. I’m like ‘Fuck it, you trippin’, go get your gun." On “Pissed Me Off,” Banks sang: “I got murders on my mind.”On Monday, the packed audience included Bowman’s family, Banks’ family and friends, a collection of social media content creators and even one celebrity: Colson Baker, otherwise known as Machine Gun Kelly, a platinum-selling rapper who is friends with Banks. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli was also present for opening statements.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads