Judge rejects Lil Durk's new bail request as feds say he 'commercialized violence'
Federal prosecutors filed a new indictment last week that doesn't mention the song and video they previously said referenced a 2022 fatal shooting in Los Angeles.
A federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday said rapper Durk “Lil Durk” Banks must stay in jail as he awaits trial in a murder-for-hire case that’s already highlighting prosecutors’ use of rap lyrics as evidence.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Donahue cited a report that Banks violated phone rules by engaging in three-way calls and using phone accounts belonging to “at least” 13 other inmates.
Defense lawyer Drew Findling said he’s heard only positive things about Banks’ behavior in jail, including his “his commitment to his Muslim faith“ and “the seriousness with which he took Ramadan.”
Findling also said people misuse phones in jails nationwide, but Judge Donahue said “Nonetheless, it shows a disrespect for the rules, and that is precisely the court’s concern.”
The judge already rejected bail in December, and she said Thursday after about 40 minutes of argument that nothing warrants reopening the hearing.
Findling, an Atlanta-based lawyer who represents many rappers, argued Banks deserves another shot at bail because his indictment wrongly said he referenced the murder in a song. Prosecutors removed all references to the lyrics in a superseding indictment filed last week, and Findling said in court on Thursday he believes “that the government no longer contends that that was accurate or at least viable testimony.”
But the lead prosecutor said they “stand by the allegations that defendant did, in fact, commercialize his violence.”
“This murder case is not about defendant’s lyrics, and it’s not about his music. It’s about his conduct,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello said.
Whether Banks’ lyrics can be used as evidence is an issue to be decided later through a motion in limine, he said. The issue for Judge Donahue on Thursday was whether there is new information that warrants reconsidering her order in December that Banks stay in jail.
“The answer is no,” Yanniello said, because nothing has changed the court’s finding that Banks “uses his money, influence and power to endanger individuals who he perceives as a threat.”
Banks’ new indictment “contains the same serious allegations about the defendant directing and financing the killing of his rival,” said Yanniello, who’s prosecuting Banks with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel Weiner and Greg Staples.
Banks, 32, has been in jail since October 2024. The second superseding indictment, filed May 1, charges him with four crimes: conspiracy, use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death, stalking resulting in death and use, carry and discharge of firearms and machine gun in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death. The stalking charge is new.
Banks pleaded not guilty to the charges on Thursday in front of about 20 supporters, including one wearing a “Free Durk” sweatshirt. His father told reporters outside the courthouse Banks is “still smiling and staying strong.”
“He’s standing on his faith,” Banks’ father said.
Codefendants Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, Asa “Boogie” Houston and David Brian Lindsey are charged with the same counts. So is Keith “Flacka” Jones, who also is charged with possession of a machine gun.
The indictment alleges Banks, who won a Grammy in 2023 for his hit “All My Life,” offered “in coded language” a bounty for the murder of rapper Tyquian Terrel “Quando Rondo” Bowman after an associate of Bowman shot and killed Banks’ friend at an Atlanta nightclub on Nov. 6, 2020.
Nearly two years later, the indictment alleges, Wilson, Jones, Lindsey and Houston traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles with a co-conspirator and at Banks’ direction, while Banks and Grant also flew in a private jet. Everyone but Banks used a BMW and an Infiniti “to track, stalk, and attempt to kill” Bowman by opening fire on his black Escalade at a gas station on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles on Aug. 19, 2022, according to the indictment. The gunfire killed Bowman’s cousin, who’s identified in the indictment by his initials, S.R.
The first indictment against Banks on Nov. 7 said he “sought to commercialize” the murder “by rapping about his revenge on T.B. with music that explicitly references audio from a news clip” about it.
The song is Babyface Ray’s “Wonderful Wayne & Jackie Boy,” in which Banks raps, “Told me they got an addy (go, go) Got location (go, go) Green light (go, go, go, go, go) Look on the news and see your son, You screamin’, "No, no" (pussy.)”
Findling filed an affidavit with his first bail request that said the song was recorded seven months before S.R. was killed. Prosecutors at the hearing in December referenced a music video they said contained a news clip about Bowman saying “no, no” when he saw his cousin was dead.
However, Findling said the videos prosecutors gave him when he asked about the reference were edited by other people on social media.
“It is unfair, misleading, and just flat-out wrong for the government to suggest that Mr. Banks is responsible for these video/audio edits or that they evidence his purported commercialization of a murder that he supposedly ordered,” according to the motion. ““Wonderful Wayne” has nothing to do with the shooting at issue in this case.”
In opposition, prosecutors said Banks was trying “to relitigate an immaterial issue about when certain of his violent rap lyrics were written.”
“Indeed, the crux of defendant’s application is that he did write lyrics about green lighting someone’s murder, just that it wasn’t this murder,” according to a 10-page filing.
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Findling also filed a motion to dismiss the indictment that said prosecutors presented “demonstrably false” information to the grand jury about Banks’ music.
Instead of opposing it, prosecutors filed the new indictment that doesn’t mention the lyrics.
With that, Findling told Judge Donahue on Thursday the only remaining connection between Banks and the murder is an “out of context” text Banks sent that said, “Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit me.”
Judge Donahue, however, said the alleged bounty offered by Banks is “clearly in the second superseding indictment.”
Findling said the first indictment against Banks “specified who he would pay the bounty to, and the second superseding indictment doesn’t.”
“How is that relevant to whether or not he’s a danger to the community?” the judge asked, referring to the issues relevant to deciding bail.
Findling answered that he’s looked through “tranches of discovery” and “the only thing that exists after a half a year is sweeping generalizations.” He also said Banks has a private security company that “would actually almost serve at the behest of the court” and alert federal authorities if Banks violates his release conditions by doing things such as smoking marijuana or booking a flight.
Judge Donahue said she doubts a private company will enforce court orders. She said she “appreciate the argument that the allegations are more general,” but they’re still “the most serious.” She also referenced Banks attempting to leave the United States before he was arrested last year: The U.S. Department of Justice said he was arrested near the Miami International Airport “after law enforcement learned that Banks had been booked on multiple international flights.”
Steve Sadow, an Atlanta-based attorney whose clients include President Donald Trump and rapper Sergio “Gunna” Kitchens, questioned why Findling alerted prosecutors to the indictment’s “Wonderful Wayne” problem through legal arguments that had little chance of succeeding.
“If you are going to trial, the Feds have screwed up the indictment and you can prove it, WHY WOULD YOU RAISE THE ISSUE PRETRIAL?? WHY NOT WAIT AND EXPOSE IT IN FRONT OF THE JURY!!! Doing it pretrial allows it to be fixed before trial,” Sadow wrote on X. “You would do it pretrial if there was a reasonable chance that it would resolve the case before trial.”
I asked Findling about Sadow’s comment after court on Thursday, and he said “seasoned trial attorneys know that you don’t want anything in that indictment that potentially will get in front of a jury and really prejudice that pool immediately.”
“It’s your responsibility as an effective attorney to make sure you clean up things that are absolutely prejudicial to your client, because you don’t want to ever run the risk when you’re a real trial attorney that something will actually make its way to a jury,” Findling said.
Findling said he’ll appeal Judge Donahue’s decision not to reopen Banks’ bail hearing. His reconsideration request will be decided by the Article III judge assigned to the case, U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald already has a hearing scheduled June 2 for Findling’s dismissal motion. He said in court he still believes his dismissal motion is valid because it requests to “open up the grand jury transcripts to us so we can see who said something to them that might have been negligent.”
Findling is representing Banks with his law partner, Marissa Goldberg, as well as Christy O’Connor, a Los Angeles attorney who is his pro hac vice sponsor, and Jonathan M. Brayman of Breen and Pugh in Chicago
Los Angeles lawyer Craig Harbaugh also was in the gallery during the hearing and spoke with some of Banks’ supporters afterward.
Findling told me he doesn’t expect any editions to Banks’ defense.
“There are so many other codefendants, so there’s other attorneys floating in and out the court watching,” Findling said.
Harbaugh declined to comment. He recently left the Federal Defender’s Office for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, where he worked for 20 years and handled some of the office’s most high-profile cases, including defending Aliso Viejo bomber Stephen Beal and arguing Real Housewives of Beverly Hills lawyer Tom Girardi is incompetent to stand trial. He opened his own office this month after working at Keller Anderle Scolnick in Irvine.
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