Lil Durk will have to wait until August for his federal murder-for-hire trial after a judge denied a request by his three co-defendants to have their cases heard separately.
The decision means the Grammy-winning rapper, whose legal name is Durk Banks, will remain in custody without bail for an additional four months before reaching a jury. His trial, previously scheduled for April, is now set for Aug. 20.
“On behalf of Banks, we are fully prepared to proceed to trial. The matter was continued by the court over our objection,” his lawyers, Drew Findling and Christy O’Connor, said in a statement to Rolling Stone. (The judge previously cited a scheduling conflict involving counsel for one of the co-defendants in setting the later trial date.)
In his ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Fitzgerald wrote that Banks was indicted alongside the three men – Deandre Dontrell Wilson, Asa Houston, and David Brian Lindsey – for alleged participation in the same conspiracy. Trying the four men together, the judge said, served “judicial efficiency,” given that the “vast majority of evidence would be admissible against each defendant.” The judge said any “risk of spillover prejudice” from evidence introduced against Banks but not applicable to the other defendants could be addressed through instructions to jurors.
“While some of the evidence focuses solely on defendant Banks and may require limiting instructions, none of that evidence is so egregious or voluminous that it would prevent the jury from making a reliable judgment about guilt or innocence,” the judge wrote.
He added that the motion to sever had been “considerably stronger” before prosecutors said they would abandon their claim that a 2022 killing in Chicago was a separate murder-for-hire scheme allegedly tied to Banks. Banks has denied the government’s allegations and challenged the inclusion of that evidence. (Lawyers for the three co-defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)
Banks, 33, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he used “coded language” to hire a group of alleged hitmen to travel to Los Angeles and carry out an execution-style killing in broad daylight on Aug. 19, 2022. Federal prosecutors say the intended target was Tyquian Terrel Bowman, known as Quando Rondo, whom Banks allegedly blamed for the 2020 shooting death of his friend and protégé, Dayvon “King Von” Bennett.
Prosecutors allege the gunmen tracked Bowman to Los Angeles and ambushed him at a gas station near the Beverly Center, firing at least 18 rounds from multiple weapons, including a machine gun. Bowman’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, was struck and killed while standing outside a black Escalade linked to Bowman, according to the government. Durk was arrested in October 2024 and has been held without bail.
At a hearing last week, Craig Harbaugh, a lawyer for co-defendant Deandre Dontrell Wilson, argued that the prosecution’s theory relied on a “multi-year narrative of violence” with “zero connection” to his client. He pointed to prosecutors’ claims that associates of Banks’ Only The Family crew had “attempted to kill” Bowman in Chicago in 2021. In an earlier ruling, the judge also allowed prosecutors to introduce Banks’ lyrics from his hit 2021 remix of “Who Wants Smoke,” which they contend reference tensions with Bowman.
Harbaugh argued that the risk of “spillover” prejudice would be severe and that jurors could not reasonably be expected to “compartmentalize” the evidence. The judge disagreed.
In a separate ruling issued Friday, the judge denied Banks’ request for a more detailed charging document, known as a bill of particulars. Banks’ lawyers had argued that the indictment was “unconstitutionally vague” and risked a “surprise at trial” because key facts were “continually shifting as government cooperators change their stories.” They said prosecutors had failed to provide reasonable detail about the timing, location, and circumstances of the alleged bounty offer or the claim that the killing was carried out “at the direction of” Banks.
“The second superseding indictment and the disclosures made by the government are sufficient to inform defendant Banks of the government’s theory of the case,” the judge ruled Friday.