Rapper Lil Durk was found not guilty of orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot connected to a 2022 shooting that left the cousin of hip-hop artist Quando Rondo dead.
The jury handed down on Friday evening. The jurors’ decision brings a nearly six-year saga to a conclusion. The 33-year-old Lil Durk, whose real name is Durk Devontay Banks, has maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal.
Federal prosecutors charged Banks in October 2024 alleging he helped pull together a scheme to try to have Quando Rondo killed as an act of revenge for the 2020 fatal shooting of 26-year-old King Von, a rapper on Banks’ Only the Family crew and record label.
In 2020, a gun fight broke out between Quando Rondo and his affiliates and King Von and his associates in Atlanta, resulting in two men dying, including King Von. Quando Rondo was not charged and a person affiliated with him had charges dropped after investigators concluded the shooting was self defense.
But prosecutors said the beef didn’t end there. Prosecutors claimed that five men were involved in the murder-for-hire plot and that Banks had offered money and musical opportunities to anyone who assassinated Quando Rondo. A federal indictment said that a credit card connected to Banks and Only the Family Records was used to buy plane tickets and fly four of the men to Los Angeles to track down Quando Rondo. When they found the rapper at a gas station, they opened fire, prosecutors said. Quando Rondo was unharmed, but his cousin, Saviay’a Robinson was fatally shot.
Police arrested Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, Keith Jones, David Brian Lindsey, and Asa Houston just a day before arresting Banks, charging them all with conspiracy and other offenses in the planned assassination.
At the trial, which began in August, Grant, Jones and rapper OTF Jam, born Kacey Hester, testified against Banks, news organizations reported.
During closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello told the jury that Banks had used his power and money to mastermind the attack, according to Complex. Banks’ defense attorneys Brian Steel and Drew Findling painted witnesses like Hester and Grant as unreliable liars who are looking out for themselves.
Banks’ legal issues aren’t over, however. He faces a civil lawsuit dealing with another death and another criminal charge of racketeering, for which he remains in custody pending a trial set to begin on October 5th.
