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Lawyers for Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk had their first major chance to attack his murder-for-hire charges and jail detention Thursday, arguing in a federal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles that the artist wasn’t trying to flee the country before his October arrest in Miami. They said the “All My Life” rapper “contests” the claim he ordered a rival’s assassination, and they submitted new evidence that a rap song cited in his indictment was written and recorded months before the deadly 2022 shooting at the center of his case.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Donahue listened as defense lawyers Drew Findling and Jonathan Brayman cast the rapper, born Durk Banks, as a gifted artist, businessman, and philanthropist with a wife, children, close parents, and deep ties to his community. The defense team offered a bail package including $1 million cash, $2.3 million in property, electronic monitoring, around-the-clock security at a secure property, and the surrender of all electronic devices.
Prosecutors fought any release, calling Banks a flight risk and danger to the community. They said their indictment included enough alleged evidence to warrant his detention. The judge agreed.
“Based on all of the evidence, I find that there is no condition or combination of conditions that will reasonably assure the safety of the community,” Judge Donahue said. “The allegations are not that the defendant personally pulled the trigger. The allegations are that the defendant exercises a significant amount of control over others.”
Banks, 32, was remanded back into federal custody at the end of the hearing attended by his mom LaShawnda Woodard, dad Dontay Banks, Norva Denton, an executive in Sony Music’s AWAL division, and Kevin Freeman, the head of Banks’ charity foundation Neighborhood Heroes. A trial in the case is tentatively set for January but is likely to be postponed.
“He’s resilient. He’s strong. We’ll get the discovery, and we’ll continue the fight,” Brayman tells Rolling Stone after the hearing. Inside the courtroom, Brayman described his client as someone raised by a single mother on Chicago’s South Side who found music as an escape and used it to pull his family out of poverty. He said his client denies directing a group of men to find and kill rival rapper Quando Rondo, born Tyquian Terrel Bowman, in Los Angeles two years ago.
According to prosecutors, Banks put a bounty on Bowman’s head because he blamed him for the death of a childhood friend. They claim Banks paid for several men to travel to Los Angeles and open fire on Bowman’s vehicle at a gas station near the Beverly Center mall in August 2022. Bowman’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, was traveling with Bowman at the time and died in the crossfire.
When it was Findling’s turn to address the court, the high-powered lawyer known for representing NBA YoungBoy, Cardi B, and President Trump said the alleged “smoking gun” in the government’s indictment was defective. He was referring to the government’s allegation that after Robinson’s death, Banks “sought to commercialize” the shooting by rapping about his revenge on Bowman. The indictment references Bank’s song “Wonderful Wayne & Jackie Boy,” released in December 2022 with Babyface Ray. In the song, Banks raps, “Look on the news and see your son, You screamin’, ‘No, no.” Prosecutors claimed it’s a reference to Bowman seeing Robinson’s dead body. Findling said the song was recorded months before the shooting and offered a sworn declaration from the song’s producer, Justin Gibson.
“The proverbial smoking gun is that this incident takes place, and then months later, Mr. Banks puts out a song to celebrate it and commercialize it,” Findling said. “That song was recorded approximately eight months before that incident took place. … We have all the time stamps from the producer. This took place not in August 2022, when the [shooting] took place. This music was produced, these lyrics performed by my client approximately seven months before in January of 2022.”
Findling further argued that Banks wasn’t trying to “flee” the country when he was arrested with luggage near a Miami airport last October, the same day authorities started arresting his alleged co-conspirators in the underlying indictment. In an affidavit, an FBI agent previously wrote that Banks had been booked that day on separate one-way flights to Switzerland and Dubai. Banks didn’t board those flights and was arrested instead trying to board a private jet bound for Italy, the agent said.
According to Findling, Banks simply made various reservations that all shared the same goal of getting him to the United Arab Emirates, a destination he frequently visited for his work in the music industry and his Muslim faith. When Banks realized he could only get economy class for the journey with multiple stops, he decided to book a private jet instead, Findling said. Banks was set to stop in Italy and then immediately continue on to the UAE.
Findling said prosecutors “have not been able to put their finger on anything” his client did that supports a criminal charge. He said his client “truly has nothing to do with” a separate murder case in Chicago involving the January 2022 shooting death of Stephon Mack on the city’s Far South Side. As the Chicago Tribune first reported Thursday, authorities filed a warrant in Mack’s murder case that reportedly links Banks to that case. He has not been charged.
“That’s other people. Our client has nothing to do with that,” Findling tells Rolling Stone. “That’s not part of our case. We can only address what we have, and so far, the only thing we have is an indictment [in California].”
During the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello argued against Banks’ release, even on home confinement with electronic monitoring. “As the allegations in this case make abundantly clear, Mr. Banks wasn’t on the street pulling the trigger,” Yanniello told the court. “He was the one who allegedly orchestrated the [murder-for-hire]. He was giving the green light to book the flights. As one of his associates was booking the flights for five co-conspirators to fly to Los Angeles to commit this murder, Mr. Banks sends a text message saying not to put his name on those flights.”
In prior filings, prosecutors have alleged Banks learned Bowman was staying in a Los Angeles hotel and set the deadly shooting in motion. They said Banks’ co-defendants “used two vehicles and worked in tandem to track, stalk, and attempt to murder [Bowman] for hours,” culminating in the gas station shooting. The gunmen fired at least 18 rounds at Bowman’s vehicle, striking and killing Robinson.
The same day several of the men traveled to California, Banks flew in on a private jet with another alleged co-conspirator, Kavon London Grant, 28, the indictment claims. Grant allegedly purchased ski masks for the shooters and used a credit card in Banks’ name to pay for the other men’s hotel room, prosecutors allege.
