Rapper Lil Durk remains incarcerated after a jury found him not guilty in his murder-for-hire trial.
A federal jury acquitted Lil Durk (real name Durk Banks), 33, on Friday, September 11, after he was accused of orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot, per Los Angeles’ ABC affiliate.
Lil Durk was arrested in 2024 for allegedly ordering the murder of fellow rap star Quando Rondo two years prior. (Shots were fired at Rondo and his cousin in Los Angeles in 2022 by three masked gunmen. Rondo’s cousin died during the incident.)
Lil Durk pleaded not guilty to the charges, with his defense team arguing in court that the “All My Life” performer had no involvement in the alleged scheme. Lil Durk stood trial alongside two other defendants, who also pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, stalking using a dangerous weapon, stalking resulting in death, and two counts involving murder-for-hire allegations.
Lil Durk’s codefendants, Deandre Dontrell Wilson and David Brian Lindsey, were each convicted of stalking and conspiracy to commit stalking charges and acquitted on the remaining counts. Lil Durk, for his part, was acquitted on all charges.
Despite the acquittal, Lil Durk will remain in jail while awaiting a second trial for several federal counts of racketeering murder and firearms charges, scheduled for next month. (Lil Durk has pleaded not guilty to all charges.)
The rap star rose to fame in 2013 with the release of his Signed to the Streets mixtape series. Lil Durk was signed to Def Jam Records the following year. Under the record label’s umbrella, Lil Durk dropped two studio-length albums before leaving Def Jam in 2018.
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Lil Durk later signed with Alamo Records and went on to release two more albums. He won his first Grammy in February 2024 for Best Melodic Rap Performance.
“It feels good to be at the Grammys,” Lil Durk told Billboard after winning the trophy for his “All My Life” collaboration with J. Cole. “You come in the studio with J. Cole, you gotta come with your A-game, you know what I’m saying? … It was a task [with] a lot of bumps in the road, but I think that’s for everybody. As long as you stay focused and get it together, you’re good. Coming from the trenches to the Grammys!”
He added, “I like what they’re doing now [in the rap genre]. They aren’t putting now cap on it. They ain’t trying to do it for somebody else, they doing it for them, you know what I’m saying? So, shout out to the whole generation under us and with us.”
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