Kavon “OTF Vonnie” Grant continued his star witness testimony in the murder-for-hire trial of rapper Lil Durk this week with a vivid detailing about the alleged plot.
Grant, the former assistant of the Grammy winner, is the third witness to take the stand in the trial, following Kacey “OTF Jam” Hester and Keith “Flacka” Jones, both of whom were participants in the August 2022 shooting in Los Angeles. The remainder of the alleged perpetrators, including Durk Banks, Deandre “OTF Dede” and David “Browneyez” Lindsey, are co-defendants in the case, while Asa “Boogie” Houston, believed to be the getaway driver, will have a separate trial.
The men are alleged to have targeted Georgia rapper Quando Rondo in retaliation for the November 2020 murder of rapper King Von, who was killed by Timothy “Lul Timm” Leeks. Rondo’s cousin, Saviay'a “Lul Pab” Robinson, was slain instead of Rondo during the shooting outside the Beverly Center. Von, real name Dayvon Bennett, is the cousin of Grant.
In a packed courtroom (and with his testimony broadcast to an overflow room that included Bhad Bhabie), Grant recalled occasionally living with Durk, his wife India Cox-Banks, and their family at their Encino, California rental home. It was during a private flight from California to Opa-Locka, Florida, which landed on the morning of August 17, 2022, that Durk notified Grant that Rondo was in L.A. The business partners and friends returned to L.A. the next day.
“Once he told me [about Quando Rondo’s whereabouts], I knew we needed a stolen vehicle,” Grant said on the stand.
Grant thought he would initially provide the “structure” of the plot: arrange cars, weapons, and a fake license plate for the stolen vehicle, a Nissan Infiniti, saying that the actions “felt normal.” As the alleged henchmen were arriving from Chicago to San Diego before arriving to Los Angeles on August 18, Grant testified that he went to Level Hotel, where Quando and his guests were staying, to “scope everything out.”
Contradicting the testimony of Hester, Grant claimed that it was Hester who requested the guns upon his arrival and dispersed them among the group. While the group allegedly planned on shooting Rondo outside the hotel at a certain point of the evening, Grant claims they left due to “no movement.”
Excluding Grant, the men stayed overnight at the Sheraton Universal in a room charged to Banks’ credit card, while Grant retreated to his boss’ house. It was there that Grant claims to have expressed concerns about the arrangement.
“We’re in California, we don’t know our way around, it was like a freefall,” he said.
By roughly 9:30 a.m. the next morning, the group reconvened to travel in two separate cars, the Infiniti and a BMW, and followed Rondo and his crew to a dispensary and the BAPE store on Melrose. Grant testified that the men discussed boxing their targets in on the freeway around 3 p.m. when traffic would be minimal.
After the shooting, the group ditched the Infiniti on a side street, gathered in the BMW, and departed for the Laurel Canyon area.
“There was no plan of action,” Grant said, adding that he eventually drove the accomplices to an In-N-Out. He later paid an Uber driver to transport the group back to San Diego to depart for Chicago.
“It was sloppy. It felt rushed,” Grant testified. “First mindset was to get out of the car because it was too tied to the murder.”
As with the the Infiniti, Grant parked the BMW in a random location and took an Uber back to Durk’s rental home.
“I didn’t feel too comfortable about what we just did,” he said. “We did it in the middle of Beverly Hills. That’s not normal.”
After being urged by Banks and Wilson to burn the Infiniti, Grant said he lied about doing so, although he retrieved a gun from the vehicle and wiped it down before abandoning it altogether.
In the afternoon, Grant was cross-examined by Drew Findling, who challenged the witness on being an “admitted fraudster” who sought to secure a future televised project about the shooting. Findling and Grant traded sarcastic remarks in the courtroom, with the latter calling out Banks for seeking home confinement, a comment that Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald had stricken.
