A Federal Jury Cleared Lil Durk of Murder for Hire. His Two Co-Defendants Were Convicted of Stalking That Ended in a Death.
After three days of deliberation, jurors in Los Angeles acquitted the Grammy-winning Chicago rapper of every count tied to the 2022 shooting that killed Quando Rondo's cousin. He stays in jail anyway, awaiting a separate racketeering trial.
LOS ANGELES — A federal jury on Friday found rapper Lil Durk not guilty of paying to have rival rapper Quando Rondo killed at a Los Angeles gas station in 2022, a shooting that missed its target but killed Rondo's 24-year-old cousin. The verdict came after three days of deliberation and two weeks of testimony in a downtown courtroom that drew crowds of fans, livestreamers and content creators to the sidewalk outside.
Durk, the 33-year-old Chicago hip-hop artist whose legal name is Durk Banks, was acquitted of conspiracy, stalking resulting in death and murder for hire. His two co-defendants did not walk away as cleanly. Deandre Wilson and David Lindsey were convicted of conspiracy to commit stalking, stalking using a dangerous weapon and stalking resulting in death, though jurors also acquitted both men of murder for hire.
Prosecutors had built their case around a revenge motive. In November 2020, rapper King Von, a close friend of Durk's and a member of his Only The Family collective, was fatally shot outside an Atlanta nightclub by someone from Rondo's entourage. The government alleged that in August 2022, a group of men flew to Los Angeles on money Durk provided, tailed Rondo and his crew through the city, and that three gunmen opened fire on Rondo's Escalade near the Beverly Center shopping mall. Rondo survived. His cousin, Saviay'a Robinson, known as Lul Pab, died.
The jury did not accept that Durk ordered or financed the attack. "We thank the jury for seeing there was no murder for hire," Craig Harbaugh, Wilson's attorney, said in an email, adding that he was "confident the remaining counts will not survive our pending motion for acquittal." Attorneys for Durk and Lindsey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Federal prosecutors framed the outcome as a partial win. "Today, the jury delivered justice to the family of Saviay'a Robinson, finding defendants Deandre Wilson and David Lindsey guilty of stalking resulting in Mr. Robinson's death," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement. "While we are disappointed with the jury's decision regarding Durk Banks, a.k.a. 'Lil Durk,' we look forward to presenting our evidence at his second trial."
That second trial is why the acquittal does not send Durk home. He remains in custody on a racketeering count that was severed from this case and will be tried separately. He has been jailed since his arrest in 2024.
The trial had the feel of a celebrity event. Machine Gun Kelly and Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, appeared in the gallery during the proceedings. Durk's own career had been at a peak when he was arrested: he won a Grammy for Best Melodic Rap Performance for "All My Life," his 2023 collaboration with J. Cole, and has been nominated for three other Grammys. He was also a featured performer on Drake's "Laugh Now Cry Later."
The split verdict leaves the Robinson family with two convictions and no answer on who, if anyone, ordered the shooting. Wilson's lawyer has already signaled he will ask the judge to throw out the stalking counts, and the government has a second shot at Durk on the racketeering charge. For now, the jury's message was narrow: it did not believe the government proved a murder-for-hire plot, and it was not willing to convict the man at the center of the case on the theory that he bought a killing.
Originally reported by NBC News.