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Lil Durk acquitted of all charges in Los Angeles murder-for-hire trial
A federal jury cleared the Grammy-winning rapper over a 2022 ambush shooting that killed a bystander, though he remains in custody ahead of a second trial.
United States rapper Lil Durk has been found not guilty on all charges in a federal murder-for-hire trial connected to a 2022 shooting in Los Angeles that killed a young man mistaken for the intended target.
The Grammy winner, whose legal name is Durk Banks, was acquitted on Friday after a Los Angeles jury deliberated for three days. The 33-year-old had faced five federal counts, including conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, interstate stalking, and stalking resulting in death.
Prosecutors alleged that Banks ordered and financed a plan to kill Atlanta rapper Tyquian Bowman, known as Quando Rondo, in revenge for the 2020 killing of his close friend and protégé Dayvon Bennett, the rapper King Von. They said gunmen travelled from Chicago to Los Angeles in August 2022 and ambushed a vehicle near the Beverly Center, but the shots killed 24-year-old Saviay’a Robinson, Bowman’s cousin, instead.
Banks denied the allegations. His legal team argued the government had built its case on coded language and lyrics rather than proof, and jurors ultimately found prosecutors had failed to make their case.
The acquittal does not free him. Banks has been held in federal custody in Los Angeles since his arrest in 2024 and faces a second federal trial on racketeering and firearms charges, reported to be scheduled for early October.
Two co-defendants, Deandre Wilson and David Lindsay, were convicted on stalking and stalking-conspiracy charges and acquitted of the remaining counts.
Speaking after the verdict, Banks’ father said the family’s relief was tempered by the loss at the centre of the case, adding that they sympathised with Robinson’s mother. Banks drew high-profile support from fellow artists throughout the three-week trial.
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