A$AP Rocky rejects plea deal as DA decries 'ambush' prop gun defense in assault trial
The rapper, who has two children with Rihanna, was at the criminal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday for the first day of jury selection in his assault trial.
Rapper Rakim “A$AP Rocky” Mayers on Tuesday rejected a plea offer in his gun assault case that asked him to serve 180 days in jail as his lawyers said in court for the first time that he was armed with a prop pistol but never pointed it at the victim.
Prosecutors wanted Rocky to plead guilty to a single felony assault count and admit he used a gun, then serve three years on probation with a seven-year suspended prison sentence. He’d serve 480 hours of community service after leaving jail, and he’d have to give up his firearms.
He faces a maximum sentence of 24 years in prison, and a prosecutor said Tuesday they’ll likely recommend 10 or 12 years in prison if he’s convicted at trial.
Rocky told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark S. Arnold his attorneys discussed the deal “in detail, Your Honor” and “I respectfully decline. Thank you.”
“Alright, you understand that you never know what a jury’s gonna do? If it happens that it doesn’t go your way, people who are convicted of this crime, they go in custody and they go to prison,” the judge said.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Mayers answered.
Arnold told the three-time Grammy nominee he won’t “get any special treatment.”
”Your status as an entertainer? Your status as the significant other of Rihanna? That’s not going to go to your benefit, and it’s not going to go to your harm,” the judge continued. He told Rocky if he’s convicted, “You’ll go in custody, and it’s very likely you’ll get a significant prison sentence. You’re aware of that?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I’m well aware,” Rocky said.
“Alright, and you’re not interested in the plea deal?” Arnold asked.
“No, Your Honor,” Rocky answered.
“OK. Then that takes care of it,” Arnold said.
Jury selection began Tuesday with 106 people. About 15 were dismissed for hardships, including related to the recent fires in Los Angeles, and one was dismissed after he said he doesn’t believe people should own guns and can’t treat gun owners fairly.
Arnold told the prospective jurors that “Mr. Mayers is an entertainer” whose “stage name is A$AP Rocky.”
Tacopina told the judge Rocky and Rihanna don’t have a marriage certificate, so Arnold called Rihanna Rocky’s “life partner.”
“His life partner is also an entertainer. Her name is Rihanna. She is a singer and actress,” Arnold said.
One potential juror is a former TV executive who said she sees the same chiropractor as Rihanna.
“I think I supported hip-hop artists from ‘95 to 2009 in my profession. I still am attached to the community,” she said.
“Are you willing to treat Mr. Mayers as you would anybody else who sits in that chair?” Arnold asked.
“Of course,” she answered.
Judge Arnold and the attorneys are questioning 12 people at a time. Four in the first group of 12 said they’d heard of A$AP Rocky before coming into court, and two said they’d never heard of Rihanna before, including one man who said he knew who Rocky was.
Tacopina asked if anyone believed hip-hop artists and rappers more prone to violence than other people. One man said yes, and he also said yes when Tacopina asked, “You think that if they sing about it in a rap song, they must have experience with it in real life?”
“If you were him, would you want you sitting in judgment?” Tacopina asked.
“Of course not,” the man answered.
Another man said he doesn’t want his children listening to music about “guns, drugs, sex.”
“I used to love it, but then I had a kid,” he said.
“Are you going to look at him, Mr. Mayers, Rocky, in a different light because of your feelings?” Tacopina asked.
“No, depends on the evidence,” the man answered.
Judge Arnold intervened.
“Mr. Mayers, he’s a hip-hop artist,” the judge said. “That doesn’t mean he did this!”
“What he does for a living has no bearing on these crimes he is accused of,” the judge said.
The prospective jurors are to report back to the courthouse at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. After they left on Tuesday, Rocky’s lawyer Chad Seigel said the pool should be stricken because it contained only five people who are Black. That’s 4.7 percent of the pool, when the Black people comprise 9 percent of the population from which the pool is drawn. Arnold rejected the argument and said, “There’s no authority that requires any particular percentage of any ethnicity on a jury.”
Rocky, 36, was arrested in April 2022 and is out of custody on $550,000 bond. Police found several firearms in his home. He is charged with two counts of first-degree assault with a firearm for a Nov. 6, 2021, confrontation in Hollywood with a now-former friend from high school, Terell “Relli” Ephron.
Surveillance video shows Rocky with what appears to be a gun as he and Relli push each other, and other videos track their movements to another area where investigators say Rocky fired shots. The shooting, however, is barely visible in a far corner of the video. Prosecutors have another video that doesn’t show the shooting but includes audio of apparent gunfire.
Relli testified in Rocky’s preliminary hearing in November 2023 that Rocky fired three or four shots, one of which grazed three of his knuckles. He said the confrontation stemmed from an argument about Rocky’s promise to pay for a dead friend’s body to be flown home to New York. A day before the altercation, Relli said he was in his friend Jabari “A$AP Bari” Shelton’s car when he heard Rocky insult him in a phone call.
Relli said he messaged a friend of Rocky and told him, “I don’t give a fuck about this A$AP shit no more.”
A$AP stands for Always Strive And Prosper. Relli described it as “a conglomerate of young men who have many different talents.” Relli and Rocky met when they attended the same high school in New York.
Police didn’t find shell casings at the scene of the shooting. Relli gave investigators shell casings that he said he recovered himself after returning to the area with his girlfriend. Relli is expected to testify again in trial.
Rocky’s team hasn’t said if Rihanna will appear in court to support him , but Judge Arnold has said she’s welcome to do so.
Prosecutor calls prop gun defense ‘a straight ambush’
Before jury selection began on Tuesday, Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina revealed in court for the first time that he plans to tell the jury Rocky was carrying a prop or starter gun, which doesn’t fire bullets, but never pointed it at Relli and apparently fired it only as a warning after Relli followed him.
Prosecutors complained in court that Tacopina didn’t tell them about the fake gun defense until late Monday.
“This is a straight ambush,” said John Lewin, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, calling it a “brand-new defense” from a witness “we’ve never been able to talk to.”
Tacopina said he didn’t take notes when he interviewed the witness, Jamel Da’Shawn Phillips, who raps under the name A$AP Twelvyy.
“This is not a minor witness. Their whole case is based on this witness' statement,” Lewin said.
Prosecutors want to interview Phillips and another defense witness, Rocky’s tour manager, Louis Levin, before he takes the stand, but Tacopina said in his email “they don’t want to talk.”
“That doesn't mean that you don't get the opportunity to try. So before they take the stand, you can try to talk to them,” Arnold said. “If they agree to talk to you, fine. If they refuse, that's their right.”
Prosecutors said Tacopina previously said Levin will testify about Rocky’s use of firearms for security as well threats such as attempted home invasions by stalkers, then on Monday night disclosed a new statement “talking about this prop gun defense.”
Arnold said any oral or written statements from potential witnesses must be disclosed to opposing counsel at least 30 days before trial. He also said Tacopina should have mentioned the starter gun defense when they met in chambers during last week’s pre-trial conference.
“I don’t think it’s fair that he waited until this long to disclose the starter pistol. I just don't believe that you’re playing fair,” the judge told Tacopina.
Tacopina said “we did allude to it” when he “talked about security measures” Rocky took, but Arnold said the 30-day disclosure rule still applied.
“If it’s in an oral statement, it should have been provided,” Arnold said.
Tacopina can still call Phillips as a witness, but prosecutors also can tell jurors that the defense didn’t disclose him until the eve of trial.
“You can address it in any way you feel is appropriate,” Arnold told Lewin. “But Mr. Tacopina, he’s going to be able to address it, too.”
Prosecutors want Judge Arnold to read an additional instruction to the jury about late-disclosed evidence, but the judge said he wants to see how the trial goes before he decides what to do.
“I’m not saying I won't give it. I'm not saying I will give it,” Arnold said.
“Prosecutors also complained that Tacopina said he didn’t take notes while interviewing Phillips or Levin but Arnold said he “accepts” that Tacopina didn’t take notes.
“I have no reason to disbelieve you. If there’s nothing in writing, then there’s nothing in writing to disclose,” Arnold said.
Tacopina wanted to call as a witness Alan Jackson, a prominent Los Angeles attorney and former prosecutor, to testify about Relli contacting lawyers to secure a settlement from Rocky and “their impression was the victim was trying to get money from them in a way that they were uncomfortable.”
But Relli never spoke directly with Jackson, so Arnold said the only possible witnesses are two attorneys he did talk to: Jamal Tooson and Brian Hurwitz. Whether Tacopina can call them depends on how Relli testifies.
Relli “can be asked about efforts that he made, or attempts that he made to try to get money from Mr. Mayers,” Judge Arnold said.
If he “admits, ‘Yeah, I did,’ then that’s the end of the issue. If he says, ‘No, I never did’ then either Jamal Tooson or Brian Hurwitz can testify. Not Alan Jackson and not Alan Jackson’s partner,” Arnold said.
Here are all the videos from the preliminary hearing.
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The prop gun is wild. That plea deal was pretty sweet I hope this works out for him and his family ♥️