Chicago rapper Lil Durk mounted a rapid-fire defense Thursday, calling nine people to the witness stand — including the wife of one of the government’s star witnesses — on the same day both sides rested their case in the closely watched murder-for-hire
trial. The judge then ordered jurors to return Tuesday for closing arguments.
Durk, born Durk Banks, is accused of ordering a murder-for-hire plot targeting rival rapper Quando Rondo as “revenge” for the 2020 killing of Banks’ close friend and musical protégé King Von. Prosecutors say Banks placed a bounty on Quando Rondo, whose legal name is Tyquian Bowman, and that associates of his Only The Family, or OTF, collective opened fire on Bowman’s vehicle at a gas station near the Beverly Center on Aug. 19, 2022. Bowman survived, but his cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, known as Lul Pab, was killed.
The government’s case relies heavily on cooperating witnesses who have pleaded guilty and testified against Banks. Kasey “OTF Jam” Hester, one of the prosecution’s key cooperators, took the stand last week and admitted he was among the gunmen who opened fire on Quando Rondo’s vehicle.
Hester testified that the shooting came about six months after he was released from prison following an attempted murder conviction. He claimed that he was riding in a car with his wife when Anthony “OTF Boonie Mo” Jones called and told him to head for the airport for an urgent trip to California. Hester said he took the call on speakerphone and could hear Banks on a separate call in the background, directing the travel.
On Thursday, Hester’s wife, Lashanta Hester, took the witness stand for the defense and disputed her husband’s account.
“No, it didn’t happen,” she testified when asked whether Jones ever called her husband in her presence and told him there was a plane ticket to California waiting for him. Asked whether she ever heard Banks tell her husband to travel to California, Hester, a mother of three who shares two children with her husband, said no.
Under cross-examination, Hester was asked whether members of her family belonged to gangs. She declined to answer or said she wasn’t aware. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morse then suggested she held the view that, “You’re not supposed to testify.”
“I’m testifying for myself because my name was brought up,” she replied. Hester later confirmed that she contacted the defense within the past week to dispute her husband’s testimony. “I never heard the [phone] conversation, sir, period,” she said.
Banks’ defense also called Shekema Springfield to the witness stand. The U.S. Army officer previously dated and lived with King Von, and the two welcomed a son together a few months after their relationship ended in 2019, about a year before his death. She was called to rebut testimony from Kavon “OTF Vonnie” Grant, one of the government’s other key cooperating witnesses.
When he took the stand this week, Grant told jurors he was working as Banks’ personal assistant when Banks allegedly set the deadly shooting in motion. Grant disputed the defense theory that he was the one who orchestrated the attack because of his own close relationship with King Von. Grant said no one would have followed his orders if he had tried to send people across the country to commit a murder.
Testifying Tuesday, Grant said Banks instigated the shooting after learning that Quando Rondo would be in Los Angeles. He said Banks directed him to obtain a stolen vehicle for the attack and told him that Chicago-based associates would fly to San Diego rather than Los Angeles in an effort to avoid detection.
Grant acknowledged that he was riding in a rented BMW that surveillance video showed following Quando Rondo around Los Angeles alongside the stolen white Infiniti he had obtained for the gunmen. After the shooting, he testified, the gunmen abandoned the Infiniti and got into the BMW with him.
Grant said the attack struck him as “sloppy” and “rushed.” He testified that he drove the men to an In-N-Out restaurant afteward, parked the BMW, and then took an Uber to Banks’ rental home in Encino. When he arrived, Grant said, Banks asked him, “Well, do you think that we got him?” Grant testified that Banks appeared “excited” and “joyful” when he later learned that Robinson had been killed.
Banks, 33, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, stalking resulting in death, and murder for hire. In her opening statement, Banks’ lawyer Marissa Goldberg said Grant was the one who organized the August 2022 shooting plot without her client’s knowledge. She said Grant was extremely “tight” with King Von, was with him in Atlanta the night he was killed, and became consumed with a desire for revenge. Her Grammy-winning client, by contrast, “channeled” his anger and frustration into “his artwork,” she said.
On Thursday, the defense called Springfield to the stand to testify about her experience living with Grant in Atlanta after she and King Von moved there so he could pursue his music career. She said the men introduced themselves as first cousins and that Grant was helping manage King Von’s finances, becoming an authorized user on his accounts.
Springfield told the jurors that after King Von was killed, she asked Grant to describe to her what happened that night. “He told me not to worry about it, and he was going to take care of it,” she testified. Asked to describe Grant’s level of truthfulness, she replied, “He’s a liar and a thief.”
Jurors also heard testimony Thursday from Kevin Freeman, executive director of Banks’ nonprofit organization, Neighborhood Heroes. Freeman said he was on a phone call with Banks the morning federal authorities arrested several men in connection with the alleged murder-for-hire plot. Banks was arrested a short time later near Miami International Airport.
Freeman testified that a lawyer was also on the call and that no one had told them there was a warrant for Banks’ arrest. Freeman said he personally suggested that Banks leave his house and “lay low” somewhere “for the sake of the kids,” because he feared federal agents might raid the musician’s home and traumatize his family.
Among the final witnesses called by prosecutors before the government rested Thursday was FBI agent Conor Goepel, who testified that he tracked Banks to Signature Aviation, a private terminal at Miami International Airport, shortly before his arrest.
Goepel said that when he first ordered Banks out of a vehicle, another man got out and walked in front of his SUV while the vehicle carrying Banks drove away. After another agent arrived and helped “box” the vehicle in, Goepel testified, Banks got out and told a companion, “Don’t say anything.”
On cross-examination, Goepel acknowledged that agents found no passports or fake identification in the vehicle.
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