Lil Durk has spoken publicly for the first time since a federal jury found him not guilty on every charge in his murder for hire trial.
View this post on Instagram
The rapper, whose legal name is Durk Banks, posted a photo of his legal team to Instagram alongside a message that opened with the line “Against all odds, we’re stronger together.” He wrote that Allah does not make mistakes, said he could feel the love and positive energy coming his way, and asked to be free so he could help save kids and bring unity back to communities. He thanked his family, his lawyers and his supporters, and closed by writing the word freedom three times. The photo included attorneys Brian Steel and Drew Findling, both of whom have defended major names in hip hop, with Steel best known for his work on the YSL racketeering case.
The verdict came down on Friday, September 11, in a federal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles. Jurors deliberated for three days after roughly two weeks of testimony, then cleared Durk on all five counts against him: conspiracy to commit stalking, stalking using a dangerous weapon, stalking resulting in death, conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities to commit murder for hire resulting in death, and the murder for hire count itself. According to the Los Angeles Times, he kept his head down as the clerk read the verdicts and began wiping away tears as the words not guilty came back again and again.The case went back to August 19, 2022. Prosecutors told the jury that Durk financed and directed an ambush near the Beverly Center in Los Angeles that was meant to kill Atlanta rapper Quando Rondo, whose legal name is Tyquian Bowman. The government’s theory was revenge, arguing that Durk blamed an associate of Bowman’s for the November 2020 killing of Dayvon Bennett, the rapper King Von, who was one of Durk’s closest friends and his artist on Only the Family.
Bowman survived the shooting. His 24-year-old cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, was killed. The indictment accused Durk of paying for travel and hotels for the people who carried it out. His defense argued the plan belonged to his former personal assistant, Kavon Grant, and that Durk knew nothing about it. Grant and two other men from Durk’s circle took plea deals and testified for the government, and the defense spent the trial telling jurors those witnesses were admitted killers pointing at Durk to save themselves from life sentences. Twelve people agreed.
Outside the courthouse, Findling said he and Durk had made an agreement 22 months earlier that they would win the case, and called for the shackles to come off so his client could go home. Crowds gathered on the street in Free Durk shirts. Machine Gun Kelly and Ye attended court in support, and Drake, G Herbo and Young Thug were among the artists who posted about the verdict.The outcome was not the same for everyone at the defense table. Deandre Wilson, known as OTF Dede, and David Lindsey, known as Browneyez, were also cleared of the murder for hire counts, but jurors convicted both of conspiracy to commit stalking, stalking with a dangerous weapon, and stalking resulting in death. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement that evening that the jury delivered justice to Robinson’s family through those convictions.
Durk’s father, Dontay Banks Sr., attended every day of the trial. He told reporters afterward that his relief was mixed with grief for the family on the other side of the case, saying he has lost a son himself and knows what Robinson’s mother is going through.
The part that has confused a lot of people is that Durk did not walk out of the building. He has been held since his arrest in October 2024 and remains at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. The reason has nothing to do with the verdict. Prosecutors filed a third superseding indictment in June, meaning a revised set of charges, that added racketeering and firearms counts tied to the same underlying events. A superseding indictment is simply a replacement charging document a grand jury issues when the government wants to add or change counts. Durk’s own lawyers then succeeded in getting those new charges severed, or split off, into a separate case, which is why they were not in front of the jury that acquitted him.
Those charges are still live, so custody continues while they work their way through. Jury selection in that second trial has been reported as beginning October 5, though the date traces to reporting rather than a filing, so it is worth treating as subject to change until it shows up on the docket. What is not in question is that the case exists, that it was severed in July, and that Durk stays in federal custody while it moves.
U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald, who presided over the first trial, had denied Durk bail multiple times before it started, including a proposal built around $4.5 million and around-the-clock home detention. In one ruling, he wrote that the money offered was only a fraction of Durk’s net worth and that facing a mandatory life sentence would make even an innocent defendant consider running.The same U.S. Attorney’s office that lost the first case now gets to bring a different theory and different charges to a new jury.
