{"id":5398,"date":"2025-04-21T16:52:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T16:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/lil-durk-wants-murder-for-hire-case-over-rondo-shooting-dismissed\/"},"modified":"2025-04-21T16:52:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T16:52:00","slug":"lil-durk-wants-murder-for-hire-case-over-rondo-shooting-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/lil-durk-wants-murder-for-hire-case-over-rondo-shooting-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Lil Durk Wants Murder-For-Hire Case Over Rondo Shooting Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tL<\/span>il Durk wants a judge to dismiss murder-for-hire charges he\u2019s facing over a 2022 shooting, claiming the feds gave \u201cfalse evidence\u201d to a grand jury by citing song lyrics that he wrote more than six months before the attack ever took place.<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors charged the Chicago drill star (Durk Banks<\/strong>) last year over allegations that ordered his \u201cOTF\u201d crew to murder rival Quando Rondo<\/strong> in \u00a0\u2013 accusations they backed up by quoting lyrics from a song called \u201cWonderful Wayne & Jackie Boy\u201d that allegedly referenced the shooting.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in a motion to dismiss the case filed Friday, Durk\u2019s attorneys said those lyrics could not possibly have made mention of the Rondo shooting because the rapper wrote them \u201cseven months before the incident even happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe government told the grand jury that Mr. Banks, through specific lyrics in his music, celebrated and profited from a revenge murder that he had ordered,\u201d writes Durk\u2019s lawyer Drew Findling<\/strong>. \u201cThat claim is demonstrably false.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe allegedly incriminating lyrics came as a feature on a track released by Babyface Ray in December 2022 \u2013 three months after the Rondo shooting. But in their motion this week, Durk\u2019s lawyer say he recorded his verses in January and had no subsequent involvement in the song. They cited sworn affidavits from two music producers who worked on \u201cWonderful Wayne,\u201d who both said Durk made no edits to the lyrics after the shooting.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUnless the government is prosecuting Banks on a theory of extra-sensory prescience, the lyrics could not have soundly informed the grand jury\u2019s finding of probable cause,\u201d Findling writes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe use of rap music as evidence in criminal cases is controversial, as critics argue it threatens free speech and can sway juries by tapping into racial biases. Over the past few years, the practice has drawn backlash from the music industry and led to efforts by lawmakers to stop it. But it has continued largely unabated, most notably in the recent criminal case against Young Thug in Atlanta, in which prosecutors made extensive use of his music.<\/p>\n

\n\tDurk was arrested in October on murder-for-hire and gun charges related to the September 2022 shooting at a Los Angeles gas station, which left Rondo (Tyquian Bowman<\/strong>) unscathed but saw friend Lul Pab (Saviay\u2019a Robinson<\/strong>) killed in the crossfire.<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors say Durk\u2019s Only The Family crew was not merely a well-publicized group of Chicago rappers, but a \u201chybrid organization\u201d that also functioned as a criminal gang to carry out violent acts \u201cat the direction\u201d of Durk. One of them was the Rondo attack, the feds say, allegedly carried out in retaliation for the 2020 killing of rapper King Von (Dayvon Bennett<\/strong>), a close friend of Durk\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBanks put a monetary bounty out for an individual with whom Banks was feuding named T.B.,\u201d prosecutors wrote in the indictment, referring to Rondo by his initials. \u201cBanks ordered T.B.\u2019s murder and the hitmen used Banks and OTF-related finances to carry out the murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to Durk, prosecutors have also charged several alleged OTF members \u2014 Kavon London Grant<\/strong>, Deandre Dontrell Wilson<\/strong> and Asa Houston<\/strong> \u2014 as well as two other alleged Chicago gang members named Keith Jones<\/strong> and David Brian Lindsey<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo support those claims, prosecutors alleged that Durk \u201csought to commercialize\u201d Lul Pub\u2019s death by \u201crapping about his revenge\u201d on Rondo: \u201cTold me they got an addy (go, go)\/ Got location (go, go)\/ Green light (go, go, go, go, go),\u201d Durk raps in the track. \u201cLook on the news and see your son\/You screamin\u2019, \u201cNo, no\u201d (pu\u2013y).\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Friday\u2019s motion to dismiss, Durk\u2019s lawyers say that accusation is \u201cpatently false,\u201d and that including them in the indictment is the kind of \u201cegregious\u201d prosecutorial conduct that requires the judge to toss the case entirely.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA prosecutor who knowingly secures an indictment based upon false information, or who allows a falsely obtained indictment to persist, routs the grand jury from its central protective function,\u201d Findling writes. \u201cThat is clearly what happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDurk\u2019s indictment also alleged that \u201cWonderful Wayne\u201d makes direct reference to a news clip filmed shortly after the shooting, in which Rondo can be heard screaming \u201cno, no!\u201d after seeing Lul Pab\u2019s dead body. But his lawyers now say those were internet edits posted to YouTube, and that the audio from the news broadcast was not used in the original.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMr. Banks did not create these videos, and the government has failed to show any nexus between these manufactured video clips and Mr. Banks,\u201d Finding says. \u201cThe internet users who posted the videos \u2026 are apparent \u2018fan pages\u2019 maintained by people with no affiliation to Mr. Banks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDismissing criminal charges at the outset is a drastic step that courts rarely take. But Durks\u2019 attorneys say the lyrics were the \u201clinchpin\u201d to the case against him, forming one of only two pieces of evidence that was presented to the grand jury that issued the indictment.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor the grand jury not to have been substantially influenced by that evidence in its decision to indict is inconceivable,\u201d Findling writes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lil Durk wants a judge to dismiss murder-for-hire charges he\u2019s facing over a 2022 shooting, claiming the feds gave \u201cfalse evidence\u201d to a grand jury by citing song […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[294,2059,3891,1916,3892,2965,2735],"class_list":["post-5398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-case","tag-dismissed","tag-durk","tag-lil","tag-murderforhire","tag-rondo","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}