Rapper faces October 5 racketeering trial after verdict
A federal jury in Los Angeles returned a not-guilty verdict Friday on all charges against Lil Durk, the Chicago rapper born Durk Banks, ending the first of two federal prosecutions the government is pursuing against him.
Prosecutors had alleged that Banks authorized a bounty on Atlanta rapper Tayquian Bowman in retaliation for the 2020 shooting death of Banks’s friend, fellow Chicago rap star King Von. According to the government, associates of Only the Family — Banks’s alleged criminal enterprise and record label — tracked Bowman to a gas station in West Hollywood in 2022, where gunmen opened fire on his car. Bowman’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, was fatally shot in the ambush.
At trial, Kacey Hester testified that he had been a shooter in the 2022 attack. According to Courthouse News, Hester described Banks asking for details after the shooting: “Did somebody get hit? How many times did you shoot? What did you do?”
Banks’s defense attorneys cast doubt on Hester’s credibility, arguing he was seeking a more lenient sentence in exchange for his cooperation. The defense also sought to portray Kavon Grant, Banks’s former assistant whose cousin had died after an altercation with Bowman’s entourage, as the alleged mastermind of the 2022 shooting.
Prosecutors pushed back on that theory in closing arguments. “No one is saying he was the one on the ground with a gun in his hand in Los Angeles, but you know this story doesn’t happen without him, and it doesn’t make sense without his leadership,” assistant US attorney Ian Yanniello reportedly told jurors.
The trial drew loyal fans and celebrity supporters to the downtown Los Angeles federal courthouse throughout the proceedings.
Friday’s verdict closes the first of two federal cases against Banks. He remains scheduled to stand trial beginning October 5 on racketeering and firearms charges. First assistant US attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement: “While we are disappointed with the jury’s decision regarding Durk Banks, AKA Lil Durk, we look forward to presenting our evidence at his second trial, scheduled for 5 October, when he will face racketeering murder and firearms charges.”