In day two of the murder-for-hire trial of rapper Lil Durk, the government spent the afternoon reviewing the November 2020 killing of his late collaborator and Only the Family (OTF) member King Von.
FBI agent Jarron Farmby took the stand on Tuesday (August 25) in a Los Angeles courtroom to analyze conversations between the Chicago rapper and his close friend and business associate Jason Smith — conversations that dealt with Von’s death and its aftermath, and at times showed Durk speaking about “get back.” The intent of the testimony was to bolster the government’s theory that Durk was the mastermind behind retaliatory violence that ended with a man dead.
Beginning on November 6, 2020, when Von, real name Dayvon Bennett, was murdered outside a hookah lounge in Atlanta, Durk, real name Durk Banks, and Smith mourned the late rapper while expressing strengthened brotherhood between each other.
In one text read in the courtroom, the Grammy winner wrote that he felt “dead inside” after Von was killed after a scuffle with Georgia rapper Quando Rondo, real name Tyquian Bowman.
“You [know] I’m [overprotective] of you at all [costs],” read a text to Durk from Smith. Just hours after the fatal shooting, the rapper would send Smith surveillance footage of the fight between Rondo and Von.
In the weeks after Von was slain by Lul Timm, real name Timothy Leeks (who was initially charged for Von’s killing, but the case was eventually dropped), texts exhibited showed that Durk was increasingly angered by the public mocking of his late friend’s death. After being sent a video of a rapper that dissed King Von, Durk replied, “Just wait on the get back.”
“When I pop on I’m on n***as ass,” he continued.
In other messages to Smith sent within a day of Von’s death, Durk proposed to go “all out” for the late rapper and showed an inability to let his murder “slide.” “Him dying turning me [into] a different animal,” he wrote.
Elsewhere in the afternoon, prosecutors showed evidence that Smith sent a news screenshot to Durk about the August 2022 murder of Rondo’s cousin Lul Pab, real name Saviay'a Robinson. Additionally, Smith sent a clip of Rondo’s emotional reaction to Pab’s deceased body being laid beside the Escalade he was fatally shot in, which some people online reenacted in what was mockingly dubbed the “Quando Rondo Challenge” on social media.
Without responding to the texts, Durk would change his number 48 hours later.
The defense criticized the government’s evidence, with lawyer Brian Steel calling the alleged gang ties “well beyond” what should be discussed during the trial. The lawyer of co-defendant OTF Dede, real name Deandre Wilson, also questioned Farmby’s legitimacy as an expert.
Earlier in the day, evidence of Pab’s death being taunted on Instagram was shown, including Dede using laughing emojis in response to a comment on the aforementioned video of Rondo in distress.
“Where y’all pipe was at gang?” the comment read.
