The Lil Durk trial just picked up a fresh legal battle, and this one centers on whether the government ever had the right to hold onto the phone that produced its key piece of evidence.
In new court paperwork filed July 27, Durk’s attorneys Drew Findling and Brian Steel are pushing to keep a text message out of the rapper’s upcoming murder for hire trial, arguing the device it came from was unlawfully seized in the first place.
According to the filing, the phone was taken from Durk’s home years ago during a chaotic scene tied to an attempted home invasion and robbery where the rapper was the actual victim, not the one committing a crime. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation responded to that incident and grabbed the device as part of its response. It has sat in law enforcement custody ever since, dating back to 2021.
That timeline is the heart of the defense’s argument. Durk’s team says the government only recently revealed plans to use a text pulled from that same phone as a trial exhibit, despite having had the device in hand for roughly five years. Attorneys argue prosecutors are trying to slide in evidence just weeks before the Lil Durk trial gets underway, leaving the defense with no real window to challenge it beforehand.
The defense is also going after the original warrant used to justify grabbing the phone at all. That warrant, tied to Gwinnett County, was meant to cover property connected to the intruders who broke into Durk’s home, not the victim of the break in. Attorneys say agents took the device anyway and held onto it well past what that warrant actually allowed.
A second warrant, this one out of Rockdale County, is also getting picked apart. Durk’s team argues that warrant fell short of what the Fourth Amendment requires, and that once investigators had the phone, they never properly separated relevant material from everything else stored on the device the way the law demands.
Then there is the FBI’s own timeline. The bureau reportedly did not seek its own warrant to search the phone until this month, just weeks before the Lil Durk trial is scheduled to start. The defense is calling that stretch an unreasonable delay, especially given how long the device had already been sitting in government hands before anyone moved to search it properly.
Findling and Steel did not soften the language in the filing, arguing there is simply “no good reason” prosecutors waited until one month before trial to pursue a warrant for evidence that has been available to law enforcement since 2021.
This news lands just two weeks after Durk notched a real win in the same case. Earlier this month, his legal team succeeded in getting newly added racketeering charges severed from the broader case, meaning those counts will not be part of the trial set to begin August 20.
Findling addressed that earlier victory directly, telling reporters the team was “very happy” with the outcome. He connected the moment to the 21 months Durk has already spent fighting the case, framing the upcoming trial date as the payoff for a defense strategy that has stayed consistent from the start.
Durk, born Durk Banks, has remained in custody throughout the proceedings. He faces charges tied to an alleged murder for hire plot aimed at rapper Quando Rondo, with prosecutors linking the plan to the 2020 killing of King Von and the 2022 shooting death of Quando Rondo’s cousin in Los Angeles.
The Lil Durk trial has already produced a string of high stakes pretrial fights, from disputes over song lyrics being used as evidence to arguments over bond and jail conduct. This latest motion adds another layer, with the defense essentially asking the court to decide whether evidence sitting untouched for half a decade can suddenly become fair game weeks before opening statements.
Prosecutors have not yet filed a public response to this specific motion. Given how contested nearly every other piece of evidence has been in this case, it is unlikely they let this one pass without a fight.
With the trial date locked for August 20, both sides are now racing the clock. Durk’s team wants the text gone before jurors ever hear about it, and whether the judge agrees could shape just how much ammunition prosecutors actually have when the Lil Durk trial finally gets underway.
