The most striking moment from Lil Durk’s opening day in federal court had nothing to do with the shooting itself.
It was the image of a co-defendant, Kavon Grant, allegedly realizing he had an “insurance policy” the moment authorities kicked down his door, and that policy had a name: Durk Banks.
Defense lawyer Marissa Goldberg laid that out plainly for jurors at a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.
She argued that Grant, who worked at Banks’s music management company Astronaut Soundz and went by “OTF Vonnie,” was the one who actually organized the deadly ambush, buying ski masks at R.E.I., booking plane tickets, arranging hotel stays, and procuring vehicles for the alleged shooters.
“Mr. Banks had nothing to do with it. He was not there. He was not connected to it,” Goldberg told the jury. She said Grant’s motive ran deep, his father and King Von’s father had history going back decades, and Grant was the one who rushed King Von to the hospital as he bled out in the backseat after the 2020 shooting that set all of this in motion.
Prosecutors told a very different story. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Weiner told jurors that Banks used “coded language” to send a group of men to Los Angeles to carry out an execution-style hit on rival rapper Quando Rondo, born Tyquian Terrel Bowman, on August 19, 2022.
The intended target survived, but Bowman’s cousin Saviay’a Robinson, known as Lul Pab, was shot and killed at a Mobil gas station near the Beverly Center as he stood outside Bowman’s Cadillac Escalade.
Weiner showed surveillance footage of the shooting, during which at least 18 rounds were fired from multiple weapons including a machine gun. He put a single word on the courtroom screens: “Revenge.”
Banks, 33, faces five federal charges including conspiracy, stalking resulting in death, and murder for hire, and has pleaded not guilty to all of them.
One of the more damaging pieces of evidence prosecutors presented was a text Banks allegedly sent Grant the day before the shooting: “Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit me.” Weiner argued that message showed Banks knew exactly what was happening and was trying to cover his tracks.
A separate group text from August 2023 allegedly showed Banks warning others that co-conspirator Kacey Hester, known as “OTF Jam,” was about to cooperate with investigators. “Jam just ready to snitch,” the message read. “He gone tell soon.”
Goldberg pushed back hard on the financial angle of the murder-for-hire charge, telling jurors there was simply no money trail to follow. “There is not going to be any evidence of direction, of instruction, of promise, of assurance,” she said. “No payment, and no bounty. Nobody gets paid. This is a murder-for-hire allegation where nobody gets paid.”
Grant has already pleaded guilty and is expected to testify against Banks. Two other alleged co-conspirators, Kacey Hester and Keith Jones, also took plea deals and are cooperating with the government.
That means Banks’s trial will likely hinge on how jurors weigh the credibility of men who have already admitted their own guilt and have every reason to shift blame upward.
An LAPD detective testified Monday afternoon about how investigators tracked the alleged shooters using GPS data from a white BMW rented by Grant, which led them to an In-N-Out Burger where surveillance footage placed several of the men after the shooting.
Investigators matched shoes visible in gas station footage to specific individuals, eventually tracing one pair of pants to a boutique on Chicago’s South Side, which led them to Deondre Wilson’s Instagram, which had a photo of Banks.
The judge has already ruled that lyrics from several of Banks’s songs can be heard by the jury, including lines from “Ahhh Ha” in which he rapped about “dropping locations” and “sliding” in response to Von’s death.
The use of rap lyrics as courtroom evidence remains deeply contested, with critics arguing it allows prosecutors to treat creative fiction as confession and reinforces racial bias in how Black artists’ work is interpreted.
Banks appeared relaxed in court, smiling with his legal team, which includes high-profile attorneys Drew Findling, Christy O’Connor, and Brian Steel. His wife India Royale and his father Dontay Banks were seated in the gallery.
Machine Gun Kelly showed up after the lunch break and sat in the front row for nearly two hours, chatting with Dontay Banks in the hallway before taking his seat.
