Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk acquitted in murder-for-hire trial
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FILE PHOTO: Lil Durk poses with his Grammy for the Best Melodic Rap Performance award during the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 4, 2024. REUTERS/David Swanson/File Photo
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Grammy-winning rap artist Lil Durk was acquitted on Friday of all charges in a federal murder-for-hire case accusing him of orchestrating the revenge killing of a man shot dead in a daytime ambush in Los Angeles four years ago.
Two co-defendants tried with the recording artist, whose real name is Durk Banks, were acquitted of murder-for-hire-related charges but were found guilty on charges of conspiracy to commit stalking, as well as stalking with a dangerous weapon and stalking resulting death.
Although Banks was found not guilty of all those charges, he remains in custody and faces a separate trial scheduled for October 5 on murder-related racketeering and weapons offenses, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.
His two co-defendants, Deandre Dontrell Wilson and David Brian Lindsey, face trial on the same counts.
According to a 32-page federal indictment filed in the case, Banks is the ringleader of a violent criminal gang consisting of associates from his rap music label, One of the Family, that has engaged in robbery, murder and drug trafficking.
The trial that ended on Friday stemmed from a fatal shooting on August 2022 at a gasoline station near the Beverly Center shopping mall in Los Angeles that prosecutors described as a planned hit.
Banks, 33, who won the 2024 Grammy for best melodic rap performance for his hit single "All My Life," was accused of ordering, financing and masterminding the intended murder of a rival rapper Quando Rondo, born Tyquian Bowman.
According to prosecutors, Banks placed a bounty on Bowman's head as revenge for the killing two years earlier of a close friend of Banks, Dayvon "King Von" Bennett, by one of Bowman's associates in an Atlanta nightclub.
But the squad of killers who Banks allegedly sent to hunt down Bowman ended up killing Bowman's 24-year-old cousin, Saviay'a Robinson, by mistake, in a hail of gunfire.
Banks, who was arrested in October 2024 at a Florida airport after five other suspects were charged in the case, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Defense lawyers have asserted that Banks had nothing to do with the plot, maintaining that it was a former personal assistant who ordered the hit to impress his boss, the Los Angeles City News Service reported in its account of the trial.
The ex-assistant and two other Banks associates originally indicted with the rapper reached plea deals in the case and testified for the prosecution, according to CNS.
Banks' acquittal set off a celebration by the rap artist's supporters outside the downtown Los Angeles federal courthouse where the trial was held.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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