Rapper Lil Durk has been found not guilty on all five charges against him in a federal murder-for-hire case stemming from a fatal 2022 shooting in Los Angeles.
The jury returned the verdict after three days of deliberations, clearing the rapper of allegations that he was involved in a plot to kill rival rapper Quando Rondo.
Prosecutors had alleged that Lil Durk hired a group of gunmen to target Quando Rondo in retaliation for the 2020 killing of his friend, rapper Dayvon “King Von” Bennett, outside an Atlanta nightclub. According to prosecutors, the gunmen fired 18 shots at Quando Rondo’s black Cadillac Escalade outside the Beverly Center in Los Angeles.
Quando Rondo survived the attack, but his cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, was struck and killed. The prosecution argued during the trial that Lil Durk ordered the attack as retaliation after an associate of Quando Rondo was involved in King Von’s killing.
Lil Durk’s defence rejected that allegation and argued that his former assistant, Kavon Grant, was responsible for ordering the attack. Defence lawyers alleged that Grant acted in an attempt to impress the rapper rather than on instructions from him. Lil Durk was charged alongside two other people in connection with the shooting.
The rapper faced five counts, including conspiracy, stalking using a dangerous weapon, stalking resulting in death and two charges involving murder-for-hire. The jury acquitted him on all five counts, rejecting the prosecution’s case that he was criminally responsible for the alleged plot.