A$AP Rocky prosecutors hope ballistics report will counter prop gun defense
Testimony continues Tuesday in the rapper's gun assault trial in Los Angeles. First, the judge will address a dispute over a newly released ballistics report from prosecutors.

Rapper Rakim “A$AP Rocky” Mayers’s prop gun defense in his assault trial met an unexpected potential adversary last week when prosecutors revealed a ballistics report about a Glock 43 gun magazine found in his former West Hollywood home.
Deputy District Attorney John Lewin said the report “only helps our case” because it “suggests” that a Glock 43 “is more likely” “than many other firearms” to have discharged the shell casings the alleged victim said he recovered from the area where the altercation occurred in November 2021.
“It doesn’t prove the case by itself, but it is definitely helpful,” Lewin said in court on Friday.
Rocky’s lawyers decried the late disclosure Friday morning, and Joe Tacopina said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever been this upset in a courtroom in my whole career.”
But Tacopina said this weekend that the report “was not easily comprehensible without having an expert look at it.”
“After having an expert look at it, the report actually helps us,” he told me in a text message on Sunday.
Tacopina told jurors in his opening statement on Friday that Rocky only carried a prop gun with him the night he met his longtime friend Terell “A$AP Relli” Ephron on a street corner in Hollywood. He never pointed it at Relli as prosecutors allege, Tacopina said, and he fired it twice only as a warning because Relli was attacking their friend Illijah “A$AP Illz” Ulanga.
Rocky is legally licensed in California to carry firearms, but Tacopina said he followed his security advice to only carry fake guns “to scare off attackers.”
“Despite his ability to do so legally, he didn’t want to carry a real gun for fear that he would either injure someone or himself,” Tacopina said.
Tacopina said Relli “fabricated” the spent shell casings and falsely told police he recovered them at the scene because he wants a large amount of money from Rocky.
The newly disclosed ballistics report could help prosecutors persuade the jury that Relli’s shell casings were from a gun Rocky fired.
Seven officers searched the scene before Relli did but didn’t find shell casings or damaged property. Relli gave the two casings to police when he walked into the Hollywood station two days later to report the shooting. He said he felt a bullet graze his knuckles, but he didn’t go to a hospital for his injury until he returned to New York, and he only did so at the advice of police.
Police also didn’t find a gun capable of firing 9 mm bullets when they searched Rocky’s home five months later in April 2022. (Note: He and Rihanna have since moved in together, a previous version of this article incorrectly said she shared the home with him.) But they found a 9 mm magazine loaded with six bullets, and the report could bolster prosecutors’ argument that the magazine belongs to the missing gun used in the shooting.
However, as Judge Mark S. Arnold said on Friday, “It’s not a smoking gun.”
“It is somewhat inculpatory. But in and of itself, it does not mean that your client is guilty,” Arnold told Tacopina.

Late report follows late defense witness reveal
Tacopina pointed out in his opening that the bullets found in the magazine were labeled Sig Luger, while Relli’s shell casings were Federal Cartridge 9mm luger brand. Tacopina also said Rocky’s tour manager Lou Levin will testify that the 9mm magazine in Rocky’s home belongs to him.
Rocky’s lawyers have long known about the seized gun magazine. But Lewin, who is prosecuting Rocky with Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec, just told Tacopina about the ballistics report on Thursday. Prosecutors sent him 28 pages of data related to the report on Friday morning.
Judge Arnold said the court will pay for the defense to hire their own expert to review the report and data. He declined to delay the trial but told Tacopina, “If it’s necessary that I speak to the examiner to impress upon the examiner the importance of getting this done ASAP, I’m glad to do that.”
“I am providing my cell phone number to all of you,” the judge told the attorneys on Friday. “If you need to call me anytime of the day or night, I will speak to you.”
Tacopina said on Sunday that the report won’t harm Rocky’s defense. He said the expert they hired on Friday said the report “shows all the things [investigators] didn’t do and, most importantly, doesn’t take into account that the two sets of bullets were completely different.”
Tacopina told Judge Arnold that new information “may affect, quite frankly, whether we would have kept or not kept a few jurors. One in particular.”
One woman on the jury is a firearms instructor, but Tacopina said Sunday after reviewing the report “we wouldn’t change a thing.”
“The significance of the new report — with 28 pages of backup data — of a ballistics test that was done over ONE YEAR AGO by the lead case detective that they dropped on the defense the night before openings was not easily comprehensible without having an expert look at it,” Tacopina told me in a text message.
Tacopina, who represented President Donald Trump in his civil sexual assault trial with columnist E. Jean Carroll, is defending Rocky with his law partner, Chad Seigel, associate Eleonora Lanzone and Los Angeles-based lawyer Sarah Caplan.
Judge Arnold said he believes prosecutors genuinely just learned of the report and did not purposely withhold it from Rocky’s lawyers. They learned last week that Tacopina planned to tell the jury Rocky carried a prop gun defense after Tacopina told them of a conversation he had with Jamel “A$AP 12vvy” Phillips, who was with Rocky and Relli that night and is to testify in Rocky’s defense.
Arnold said Tacopina violated court rules that require all witness statements, oral and written, to be disclosed to opposing counsel at least 30 days before trial. He initially told prosecutors they could mention Tacopina’s late disclosure in their opening statement, but he changed his mind because “the purpose for an opening statement is to give the jury an idea of what you believe the evidence will show.”
“Talking about late discovery, that’s argument,” said Judge Arnold, a 1998 Gov. Pete Wilson appointee who has been trying felony cases his entire bench career. The judge hasn’t decided if he’ll specially instruct the jury about Tacopina’s late disclosure.
Jurors didn’t hear about the ballistics report on Friday, but Przelomiec told them in his opening statement that police found a 9 mm magazine in Rocky’s home in April 2022 “but no handgun to go with it.”

Phillips’s expected testimony for the defense that Rocky used a prop gun “means it will essentially be uncontested that Mr. Mayers was the person who fired the gun at that street corner,” Przelomiec said.
Tacopina told the jury that Rocky prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rocky possessed a real gun because he's charged with “assault with a semiautomatic firearm.” Arnold sustained prosecutors’ objection and told jurors he’ll instruct them on the law. Jury instructions have not been finalized, and Przelomiec indicated in his opening that prosecutors have a different view: He said jurors will hear that the gun Rocky held “is a semi-automatic pistol or has features that are consistent with a semi-automatic pistol.”
Przelomiec said jurors won’t decide if Relli was actually hit by bullets, but Tacopina said whether his knuckles truly were grazed goes to his credibility.
“There was no actual shooting because there was no real gun. There was no evidence of shooting because there was no real gun,” Tacopina said.
Who’s the aggressor in the videos, Rocky or Relli?
Surveillance video captured Rocky’s initial confrontation with Relli outside a parking garage on Argyle Avenue between Hollywood Boulevard and Selma Avenue around 10:10 p.m., then the shooting seven minutes later a couple blocks away on Argyle.
In his opening, Przelomiec called the area “the heart of Hollywood” and noted it’s near “the iconic” intersection of Hollywood and Vine Street.
The first video is better than the second, but it doesn’t show Rocky actually pointing a gun at Relli, only holding it behind his back before stepping off camera. He turns around back onto camera seconds later and sticks the gun in his waistband.
“You see on the video that Mr. Mayers is immediately aggressive towards Mr. Ephron,” Przelomiec said.
The video of the shooting at Argyle and Vista Del Mar is, as Przelomiec told the jury, “a little small” and “in the distance.” It doesn’t have sound, but investigators found another video from a nearby camera that includes audio of two shots and includes a motion light going on that the other video shows Rocky activated. The shots also occurred shortly before at least two residents in the area reported gunfire to 911.
Relli “never believed that the defendant would actually shoot him,” Przelomiec said.
“He will tell you that had this been a stranger — someone he didn’t know as well — he would have been petrified,” Przelomiec said. “But he knows the defendant. He knows that Mr. Mayers is not going to shoot him.”
Relli followed Rocky and told him “if you brought a gun, you should shoot it,” Przelomiec told the jury.
“That’s how confident he is that he knows the defendant is not going to pull that trigger,” Przelomiec said.
Relli “decided at that moment that having a gun pointed at him was sort of a bridge too far in their friendship” so he followed Rocky “and was yelling and screaming at him.”
“Even though he knew the defendant had a gun … he still never believed that the defendant would actually shoot at him,” Przelomiec said. “Had anyone else done this, he would have been frightened. But he had known the defendant for so long, and they were close.”
Przelomiec zoomed in on the video of the shooting and told jurors it shows Relli jumping behind Illz “essentially to put Illz between him and the defendant.”
“And you’ll see on the video, the defendant is lunging one way and then the other way around Illz trying to get at the victim, who is holding Illz in front of him,” Przelomiec said.
Tacopina had a different take on the videos. He told jurors in his opening that Relli was the aggressor, not Rocky, and that Relli touched Rocky first.
“He comes up with that left hand before Rocky raises his right hand,” Tacopina said. “He has his hand around Rocky’s neck or shoulder and Rocky’s right hand then finally comes up.”
Tacopina said Relli knew the gun was fake, so he followed Rocky and “attacked Illz.” Rocky fired his starter pistol twice “hoping the sound would be enough to scare off Relli and protect Illz.” Relli continued attacking Illz, Tacopina said, and appears to have scraped his hand on the ground.
One fact that could favor prosecutors is that Rocky didn’t mention the shooting or his apparent acts of heroism and self defense when Relli confronted him in a text message 90 minutes after the shooting.



Przelomiec told jurors of a text Relli sent Rocky that said, “U try killing me.” Rocky replied, “Rell wtf iz u talkin bout??? Why u tellin ppl i shot at u.”
Relli later texted Rocky, “Y’all n****s set me up u try to take me from my daughter.” Rocky replied, “I tried to do what??” N**** i know u hate me, i hate u too.”
Relli also texted a friend on Nov. 7 at 3:40 a.m., “I wanna get this n****s money” and “He shot at me.”
Tacopina also highlighted the Nov. 7 texts in his opening. He said they show Relli wanted to extort Rocky, and Relli followed through on his plan by filing a lawsuit against Rocky that seeks $30 million in damages. Relli also is suing Rocky and Tacopina for defamation.
“That’s what was on his mind. Not his near-death experience. Oh, my God. How did he even survive that scrape on his knuckles? Not running to police to arrest the culprit. No — texting everyone, ‘I’m going to get rich, get his money,’” Tacopina said. “That’s all he cared about.”
A glitzy 2025 for Rocky — unless he goes to prison
Rocky and Relli have known each other since they were teenagers in Harlem, New York, and formed the A$AP group, which stands for Always Strive and Prosper and is a collective of people with different artistic pursuits, Przelomiec said.
Relli owns Shuteye Entertainment, an artist management company, and he was in Los Angeles with a client when tensions between him and Rocky boiled over.
Relli awoke about 9 p.m. the night of the shooting to missed calls and texts from Rocky as well as Illz and 12vvy. Three texts from Rocky said, “Wya?” “Let’s get to it” and “Stop duckin my calls.”
“The messages that the victim is receiving are instantly aggressive towards him,” Przelomiec said.
Tacopina, however, said Relli was jealous of Rocky and angry about his success, “and as Rocky rejected some of the projects he presented him, Relli’s resentment grew further and darker.” When their friend A$AP Josh died, Rocky said he’d pay for his body to be flown home to New York and for his funeral. But Relli thought Rocky didn’t do so, and he was “furious,” Tacopina said.
Tacopina said Relli texted a friend weeks before the shooting, “I’m going to beat this n**** up.”
“Funny. They showed you a lot of text messages. I didn’t see that one,” Tacopina said.
Mayers was 33 at the time of the shooting, and Rihanna was three months pregnant with their first child.
Police arrested him on April 20, 2022 — about five months after the shooting — as he and Rihanna returned to Los Angeles from Barbados, and officers used a battering ram to enter their home and recover the 9 mm magazine that’s now a key piece of prosecution evidence. The couple’s first son was born a month later.

Then in February 2023, Rihanna performed at the Super Bowl halftime show visibly pregnant. Her and Rocky’s second son was born six months later. By the end of the year, a judge had declared enough evidence exists for Rocky to be tried on his assault charges, following a two-day preliminary hearing that included three hours of testimony from Relli.
Rocky has been out of jail on $550,000 since shortly after his arrest. He’s traveled internationally, including meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in January and performing at the Rolling Loud music festival in Thailand in November. He’s scheduled to headline the Rolling Loud festival in California in March, where he’s to perform new tracks from his yet-to-be released album, “Don’t Be Dumb,” and he was selected to co-chair the 2025 Met Gala in May.
Last week, he rejected an offer from prosecutors that he plead guilty to one assault charge and admit he used a gun, then serve 180 days in jail and be on probation for three years with a seven-year suspended prison to serve if he violates probation. He was to take anger management courses and perform 480 hours of community service, and he’d have to relinquish his firearms because he’d be a convicted felon.
Rocky’s maximum sentence is 24 years in prison; Lewin said prosecutors likely will recommend a prison sentence of 10 to 12 years if he’s convicted.
Erika Jayne Girardi’s son is first trial witness
Testimony continues Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. in Los Angeles. Tacopina will continue cross-examining Sgt. Thomas Zizzo of the Los Angeles Police Department, who responded to 911 calls about the shooting but didn’t find shell casings or see bullet damage.
Zizzo, who is the son of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne Girardi, told Przelomiec in direct-examination that sometimes mentally ill people report a shooting and there are no other reports, but multiple calls about a shooting usually indicates something happened. Jurors saw video from Zizzo’s on-duty body camera of him and other officers searching a parking lot near the shooting.
“Is it fair to say at that point you were having trouble determining whether a crime had even occurred?” Przelomiec asked.
“That’s correct,” Zizzo answered.
Zizzo said they “didn’t search every inch of that street.”
“As you sit here, can you say with certainty that there was not a fired cartridge in that street?” Przelomiec asked.
“I can’t say that. I may have missed something. It’s possible,” Zizzo answered.
“Is it reasonable that sometimes you will respond to a shooting and miss certain evidence such as fired cartridge casings?” Przelomiec asked.
“That’s right,” Zizzo answered.
Relli could begin testifying on Tuesday.
There are seven women and five men on the jury including eight who appear white, two who appear Hispanic and two who appear Asian.
One woman is an assistant principal at an elementary school. Another woman is a scientist who spent 20 years designing space crafts, and one man manages an upscale hotel with a staff of about 80 people. Another man is a former manager at Trader Joe’s, and another woman is a firearms instructor whose father was a criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles. Her uncle also was a judge, and she has four cousins who are lawyers.
The alternate jurors include a woman who is an entertainment lawyer and whose husband is a retired entertainment lawyer, as well as a retired administrative law judge from Minnesota and a marketing chief for a healthful snack company.
Court is to begin at 9:30 a.m. for a hearing outside the jury about the ballistics report. I’ll stream live on my YouTube channel, and I’ll share details and answer questions in the chat from the courtroom.
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