Lil Durk acquitted of all charges in murder-for-hire trial

A federal jury in Los Angeles acquitted Chicago rapper Durk Banks, known professionally as Lil Durk, of all charges Friday in a murder-for-hire trial stemming from a 2022 shooting outside the Beverly Center that killed a rival's cousin. The verdict, delivered after a three-week trial in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, clears the Grammy-winning artist of conspiracy, interstate stalking and murder-for-hire counts that carried a potential life sentence.

Prosecutors alleged Banks orchestrated a plot to kill fellow rapper Tyquian "Quando Rondo" Bowman in retaliation for the 2020 killing of Banks' friend and collaborator King Von, financing men who, according to a detailed account of the trial from ABC7 Los Angeles, flew to Los Angeles, tracked Bowman's movements and opened fire on his vehicle near the Beverly Center in August 2022. Bowman survived; his 24-year-old cousin, Saviay'a "Lul Pab" Robinson, was killed in the ambush. Defense attorneys spent the trial attacking the credibility of the government's cooperating witnesses, several of them admitted participants in the shooting, arguing they had implicated Banks to reduce their own sentences.

A split verdict for co-defendants

Banks stood trial alongside two of the men accused of participating in the plot, Deandre Wilson and David Lindsey. Jurors convicted both men of conspiracy to commit stalking and stalking resulting in death but acquitted them, as they did Banks, on the murder-for-hire counts. The case had originally named several additional co-defendants from Banks' Only the Family record label, whose charges were severed into separate proceedings earlier this year. Jurors began deliberating Wednesday and returned their verdict Friday afternoon, pausing at one point on Thursday to ask the court for a formal legal definition of "intent" as it applied to the stalking counts, a request that suggested the panel was weighing the charges element by element rather than treating the case as a package.

The trial followed a lengthy pretrial history detailed in Justice Department filings, including an initial criminal complaint alleging Banks ordered the attack and a later superseding indictment adding stalking and firearms counts from the US Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. Banks was arrested near Miami International Airport in October 2024 and was denied bail repeatedly, including a proposed $4.5 million bond package, remaining in federal custody through the nearly two years the case took to reach trial.

One case down, another to go

The case, formally captioned United States v. Grant, et al., No. CR 24-621 before U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, spanned more than a year of pretrial motions, including efforts by Banks' defense to dismiss counts and sever his case from his co-defendants'. The acquittal does not end Banks' legal exposure. He faces a separate federal trial on racketeering charges tied to Only the Family, scheduled to begin October 5, meaning Friday's verdict resolves only part of the criminal jeopardy he has faced since his October 2024 arrest. Prosecutors have not indicated publicly whether the outcome will affect their approach to the racketeering case, which involves additional co-defendants and different alleged conduct.

The mixed result for Banks' co-defendants underscored how narrowly the jury drew its findings: prosecutors secured stalking convictions against Wilson and Lindsey over the same 2022 shooting even as jurors declined to find any of the three men guilty of murder-for-hire. Banks' legal team, which spent the trial arguing that the government's cooperating witnesses had fabricated his involvement to shorten their own sentences, is expected to point to the acquittal as it prepares for the racketeering trial next month.