Lil Durk walked out of his murder-for-hire trial acquitted on five counts, but according to Trap Lore Ross, who attended every single day of the proceedings, the legal battle is far from finished.
Two severed charges remain, a trial date is scheduled, and a Supreme Court precedent may eliminate any double jeopardy defense.
Ross was unambiguous about what the acquittal did and did not mean. Co-defendants DD and David Lindsay were found guilty on serious counts with enhancements, he noted, and both are looking at potential life sentences.
DD and David Lindseay have been found guilty for stalking that resulted in the death of Lil Pab with a machine gun,” he said. “And those are some serious charges that they’re guilty of.”
On the question of what saved Durk in the eyes of the jury, Ross pointed to two factors above all others. The first was the absence of any direct payment to the alleged killers.
Testimony indicated that promises of large sums were made but never delivered, and that Durk, when confronted about it, deflected rather than paid.
The second was the location data. “The fact that Durk’s phone was never at any of the locations involved with the murder was very good,” Ross said.
The most striking piece of evidence, in Ross’s view, came during closing arguments. Prosecutors alleged that immediately after the killing, Durk was on FaceTime with the killers as they fled the scene, and that his manager then booked five return flights for the group out of San Diego within hours, apparently without being in direct contact with any of them.
“How did Durk’s manager know to book those five flights, return flights from San Diego within the next few hours?” Ross said. “They’re rushing around, hiding, throwing off hoodies, changing cars.” The manager was never charged and did not testify.
Ross also explained why the FaceTime calls themselves produced no usable evidence for prosecutors. FaceTime transmits as data packets rather than pinging cell towers, meaning the calls left no traceable record.
As far as the feds are concerned, a FaceTime audio or a FaceTime video call is the same as streaming a video on YouTube,” he said. “They could not get anything from these FaceTime calls.”
The remaining charges, severed before trial, cover a broader set of alleged violent crimes in aid of racketeering, including the Stefon Mack murder, the attempted murder of Alexander Witherspoon, the shooting in Blackshear, Georgia, and the Lil Pab killing.
Ross cautioned that many people are misreading the indictment and treating those counts as mere background. They are not, he argued. They are active charges.
On the double jeopardy question that has circulated widely since the acquittal, Ross pointed to a Supreme Court case he identified as Courier.
In that case, a defendant who consented to having charges severed was later ruled ineligible to claim double jeopardy when tried on the separated count. “If you consent to severing your charges,” Ross said, “double jeopardy doesn’t apply.”
He acknowledged he could be wrong and encouraged people to research the case themselves, but said the precedent appears directly relevant to Durk’s situation.
The conviction of DD complicates the next trial considerably. DD is alleged to be a senior leadership figure in the same racketeering enterprise, and his guilty verdict on the stalking charge can be used to establish the structure and conduct of that enterprise.
Proving Durk sat at the top of an organization whose number two has already been convicted by a jury may be a significantly easier task than the murder-for-hire case that just concluded.
Ross does not expect the government to walk away. “I think the feds are going to be out for blood,” he said. The next trial is currently scheduled for October 5.
