Lil Durk got the best news he has had in months. On Tuesday, July 14, a federal judge agreed to remove two racketeering charges from the rapper’s upcoming murder for hire trial, a significant win for his defense with the trial now just weeks away. The charges will not disappear entirely, but they will be pulled out of the August case and handled separately down the line.
U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald ordered that the two racketeering counts, which prosecutors added only last month through a third superseding indictment, be severed from Lil Durk’s main trial and tried later, with no date yet set for that second proceeding. The core trial, where Durk faces the original murder for hire allegations, is still scheduled to begin August 20 in downtown Los Angeles.
The severed charges accused Durk of helping run a criminal enterprise, and prosecutors leaned on two incidents to support them, a 2019 shooting in Atlanta and a January 2022 killing in Chicago. Notably, Lil Durk was never charged in either of those cases. His attorneys pushed to have the counts thrown out entirely or split off, arguing that prosecutors were sandbagging the defense by switching theories right before trial and dumping a mountain of new evidence too close to the start date, which they said threatened his right to a speedy trial.
The judge appeared to agree, and he did not hide his irritation with the government. Rolling Stone reporter Nancy Dillon, who was in the courtroom, described Judge Fitzgerald as “on fire” and visibly frustrated with the prosecution during the hearing. In his ruling, the judge pointed out that the government had earlier chosen to withdraw the Chicago evidence from the Los Angeles case, and said prosecutors would have to live with that choice now that Durk’s team had spent so long building a defense around it. It was, in short, a bad day for the prosecution and a good one for Lil Durk.
After the hearing, Durk’s side spoke, and the message was confidence. His legal team, which is led by Drew Findling and recently added Brian Steel, the attorney who represented Young Thug in the YSL racketeering trial, made clear they were pleased. “We are very happy with the court’s order,” Findling said, adding that after 21 months the team remains committed to Durk’s innocence and is looking forward to the August 20 trial. Durk’s partner India Royale and his father were both in the courtroom, and reporters noted that India blew kisses to him as he was led back into custody.
That detail is a reminder of Lil Durk’s situation. Born Durk Banks, the 33 year old has been held without bond since his arrest in South Florida in October 2024, and he has maintained his innocence throughout. He and five members of his Only The Family collective were charged in connection with what prosecutors describe as a murder for hire plot. According to the government, Durk allegedly organized a hit on his rival Quando Rondo, and the August 2022 shooting in Los Angeles instead killed Quando’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson. Prosecutors have claimed the plot was retaliation tied to the 2020 shooting death of Durk’s close friend and protégé, King Von.
Durk has firmly denied all of it. His attorneys have rejected the government’s theory that he used coded language to arrange the killing, and he has denied the related claims that surfaced in the racketeering filings. With Tuesday’s ruling, the enterprise framing that prosecutors tried to attach to the case is set aside for the first trial, leaving the August proceeding focused on the original counts rather than a sprawling picture of an alleged criminal organization.
The case has been one of the most closely watched in hip hop since Durk’s arrest, both because of his stature as one of the genre’s biggest stars and because it echoes the wave of prosecutions, including Young Thug’s YSL case, that have leaned on rap affiliations to build racketeering arguments. Bringing Brian Steel onto the team signals that Durk’s camp is preparing for exactly that kind of fight. For now, though, the August trial has been narrowed, and that narrowing is the whole story of Tuesday.
The win also sets up an interesting wrinkle. Because the racketeering counts are being tried separately, Durk’s team could have grounds to challenge that second trial on double jeopardy issues if the August case ends in an acquittal. In the meantime, prosecutors signaled they will ask the court to keep the identities of the 16 jurors anonymous, citing security concerns, a request the judge said would be sorted out at a later hearing.
For Lil Durk, none of this means the hard part is over. He is still facing serious federal charges, still behind bars, and still weeks away from a trial that will shape the rest of his life. But after nearly two years of losses, denied bond, and mounting charges, Tuesday was the rare day the momentum swung his way, and his camp made sure to say so on the way out of court.
