Lil Durk acquitted of murder-for-hire in the 2022 Beverly Center shooting

A federal jury in Los Angeles found rapper Lil Durk, born Durk Banks, not guilty on Friday of murder-for-hire, conspiracy and stalking charges tied to the 2022 killing of Saviay'a Robinson near the Beverly Center. Jurors deliberated three days. Banks, 33, faced a possible life sentence. He cried when the verdict was read.

Prosecutors said Banks ordered a hit on Atlanta rapper Tyquian Bowman, known as Quando Rondo, as revenge for the 2020 killing of his friend Dayvon Bennett, known as King Von. Timothy Leeks, also called Lul Timm and described by prosecutors as an associate of Bowman, was later charged in Von's death. Those charges were dropped.

On a summer day in 2022, prosecutors said, three men in ski masks opened fire on Bowman's car at a gas station across from the Beverly Center. They missed Bowman and killed Robinson, 24, Bowman's cousin. The government said Banks paid for flights, cars, phones and masks and that the crew had followed Bowman around Los Angeles for two days.

The cooperators and the defence

The case leaned on three cooperating witnesses. Kavon Grant, also known as OTF Vonnie and once Banks's assistant, said Banks promised cash for Bowman's murder. Keith Jones said the offer was $1 million. Kacey Hester, known as OTF Jam, pleaded after a separate gun arrest and testified he was a shooter lured by the money. All three said Banks was not at the shooting and never paid them.

Defence lawyer Brian Steel, who also represented Young Thug in the YSL trial, told jurors the cooperators were snitches seeking lighter sentences and that Grant, not Banks, drove the attack. Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald allowed some of Banks's lyrics as evidence of state of mind after Von's death, a ruling First Amendment advocates had fought. One line prosecutors highlighted was a verse about hitting a target's friend if the main target could not be reached.

What the jury did with the co-defendants

Deandre Dontrell Wilson and David Brian Lindsey were acquitted of murder-for-hire and convicted of stalking charges that can still carry life. Banks was cleared on every count he faced in this indictment. He remains in custody for a separate federal racketeering case tied to his Only the Family label. That trial is listed for 5 October in the same downtown courthouse.

The verdict does not decide who killed Robinson. It decides that this jury would not treat the cooperators' story as proof beyond reasonable doubt that Banks commissioned the shooting. The recorded legal facts on Friday are specific. Five counts, three days, not guilty for Banks. Two co-defendants still facing sentence on stalking. Another trial in three weeks on a different statute.