Federal Jury Selection Begins in Murder-for-Hire Trial of Rapper Lil Durk

Jury selection officially got underway Thursday in the federal trial of Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk, who stands accused of orchestrating a violent 2022 murder-for-hire plot outside a Beverly Center gas station. 

The 33-year-old artist, born Durk Banks, faces charges alongside five co-defendants associated with his Chicago-based Only the Family (OTF) collective. Federal prosecutors allege Banks financed and directed an interstate hit targeting rival rapper Quando Rondo in retaliation for the November 2020 killing of King Von, a close collaborator of Banks. While Quando Rondo escaped unharmed, his cousin, Saviay'a "Lul Pab" Robinson, was fatally shot during the August 2022 ambush.  

The trial proceeds under U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald after a critical procedural ruling last month. Prosecutors had sought to expand the case with additional racketeering (VICAR) charges alleging broader gang-related activity, but Judge Fitzgerald severed those counts, ruling that the initial murder-for-hire charges must be tried first without further delay. 

Court proceedings follow a series of evidentiary pre-trial battles, including rulings that allow prosecutors to introduce specific music video footage, song lyrics, and testimony interpreting track references into the trial record.

Banks has remained in federal custody since his October 2024 arrest in Florida, where law enforcement intercepted him before he could board an international flight. Defense attorneys maintain his innocence, arguing that the government’s case relies on circumstantial connections and speculative interpretations of creative artistic work.  

If convicted on the lead charge of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death, Banks faces a statutory sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty.