Lil Durk has pleaded not guilty in his murder-for-hire case in a Los Angeles federal courtroom after being extradited from Miami.
Durk appeared in court on Thursday (November 14), three weeks after he was apprehended while allegedly attempting to flee the country. The Chicago rapper was being held without bond in Florida, and will now remain in Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Detention Center.
A detention hearing has been set for December 12 to determine whether he will be granted bond – which prosecutors are strongly recommending against.
Lil Durk was initially hit with one charge of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire over an alleged murder plot that killed the cousin of his rap rival Quando Rondo. However, in a superseding indictment filed on November 7, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California charged Durk with two more crimes: one count of use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death, and one count of using, carrying and discharging firearms and a machine gun and possession of such firearms in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death.
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The superseding indictment also adds the Grammy-winning rapper as the lead defendant to the initial indictment in the case, which charged five other men over the killing.
According to prosecutors, the attempt on Quando Rondo’s life that killed Lul Pab was payback for the murder of King Von, who was fatally shot during a scuffle with the rapper’s crew two years prior.
Lil Durk is accused of putting a bounty on Rondo’s head and lending money and resources to members of his OTF (Only The Family) crew to carry out the hit.
“Bank and flight records show that an OTF member and close associate of [Lil Durk] coordinated and paid for five co-conspirators to travel from Chicago to California on the day before the murder,” a Justice Department press release reads.
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“Around the time the one-way flights were purchased, [Lil Durk] told the OTF associate booking the flights, ‘Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit [sic] me.’”
It continues: “The same day the hitmen traveled from Chicago to California, [Lil Durk] also traveled to California in a private jet with another conspirator, Kavon London Grant, 28, a.k.a. ‘Cuz’ and ‘Vonnie.’
“Later that day, Grant allegedly purchased ski masks for the shooters to use to commit the murder and paid — using a credit card in Banks’ name — for the other co-conspirators’ hotel room.”
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If convicted, all the defendants face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
