Lil Durk Linked to 2022 Murder in Chicago, Prosecutors Say

Lil Durk may have another legal battle on his hands.

Newly unsealed court records link embattled Chicago rapper Lil Durk — already facing murder-for-hire charges in Los Angeles — to the fatal 2022 shooting of an alleged gang leader outside a community center on Chicago’s Far South Side.

The warrant application was filed in April 2023 but was unsealed in advance of a detention hearing Thursday in Los Angeles in Lil Durk’s murder-for-hire case, where prosecutors presented the information as evidence he should not be released pending trial.

A U.S. magistrate judge denied Durk’s request for bail at a lengthy hearing Thursday afternoon that was attended by many of Durk’s relatives and supporters, his attorney, Jonathan Brayman, told the Tribune.

“We were obviously disappointed, but will continue to fight on,” Brayman said. “Mr. Banks remains confident and optimistic about the future. He deeply appreciates the outpouring of love and support he has felt since his arrest.”

Lil Durk — born Durk Devontay Banks — was charged in October with funding a cross-country murder-for-hire plan to exact revenge for the 2020 killing of fellow Chicago rapper King Von in Atlanta.

The newly unsealed filing in U.S. District Court in Chicago alleges Banks was behind the Jan. 27, 2022, killing of Stephon Mack, 24, who was shot to death shortly after he exited the Youth Peace Center of Roseland on West 111th Street. At the time of his death, according to the FBI, Mack was the leader of the Smashville faction of the Gangster Disciples.

Banks’ brother, Dontay Banks, was shot to death outside a nightclub in south suburban Harvey in 2021. According to the warrant application, another Gangster Disciples faction with ties to Smashville carried out the murder.

“Lil Durk was and still is offering money for people to kill those responsible for his brother’s murder, and more specifically, offering to pay money for any Gangster Disciple that is killed,” a federal agent wrote in April 2023.

Banks has not been charged in the Chicago investigation, which law enforcement sources told the Tribune is still open and active.

In their motion for pretrial release filed Thursday, Banks’ attorneys had offered to put up his two homes in Georgia, worth a combined $2.3 million, as well as $1 million in cash from Sony Music, to secure a bond.

Banks’ attorneys also pointed to state charges brought against the artist in Georgia that stemmed from a 2019 shooting in Atlanta. Banks was granted pretrial release before those charges were dropped in 2022.

“The best determiner of how an individual will act in the future is how they behaved in the past, and Mr. Banks has shown that he respects the orders of the Court and has been an ideal candidate for pretrial release,” Banks’ attorneys wrote.

Federal prosecutors, in response, said Banks’ proposed bond conditions “are woefully inadequate to protect the community and vital witnesses from harm and to mitigate (the) defendant’s risk of flight.”

For the first time since he was charged, prosecutors in Los Angeles also made reference to “other murders” allegedly ordered by Banks.

“Evidence collected in this case also shows (the) defendant has allegedly placed monetary bounties to solicit other murders, including a family member of a witness,” prosecutors wrote. “Defendant’s modus operandi is clear: he will use his power, his money, his influence, and any pretrial release to endanger anyone who he perceives as a threat, including witnesses in this case.”

Banks was arrested near a Florida airport in late October, shortly after federal prosecutors charged five people with carrying out the 2022 Los Angeles shooting that targeted Quando Rondo. Prosecutors allege Banks had purchased seats on three different international flights shortly before his arrest.

Earlier this year, federal prosecutors in Chicago charged two men, Anthony Montgomery-Wilson and Preston Powell, with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire in Mack’s killing. Banks, though, is not charged in Mack’s death. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are expected to point to the shooting as reason to keep Banks in police custody before trial.

In probing Mack’s death, federal investigators analyzed jail phone calls, social media postings and firearms purchases, as well as lyrics from Lil Durk’s song “Ahhh Ha,” released about a month after the shooting.

The warrant application goes on to say Montgomery-Wilson and Powell “may have exchanged text messages concerning payment for Mack’s murder.”

Montgomery-Wilson was arrested on an unrelated charge a few weeks after Mack’s death. A detective with the New Lenox Police Department then applied for and was granted a warrant to search the contents of his cellphone.

Investigators then allegedly discovered a two-person text message conversation that mentioned “OTF” — the rap consortium founded by Lil Durk that prosecutors have linked to the alleged murder-for-hire plot in Los Angeles.

On Feb. 10, 2022, one of the people in the text conversation asked, “Wassup with otf,” to which the other person responded, “Nothing.”

Eight days later, in the same conversation, another text message read, “Did durk gave (sic) u that money.”

In a statement last week, Banks’ attorneys blasted the prosecution’s focus on Lil Durk’s music and noted his yearslong record of philanthropy in Chicago.

“When you see an artist’s rap lyrics quoted as ‘evidence’ against them, it is a glaring indication that there is no real evidence against that person,” Banks’ attorneys said in a statement to the Tribune.

“The real truth is that Durk Banks is a Grammy Award-winning artist, a dedicated father and a loving husband,” Banks’ attorneys added. “Mr. Banks has been intensely committed to giving back to the Chicago community he loves through his Neighborhood Heroes Foundation and has put on more than a dozen charitable events over the last few years. He is looking forward to fighting against these false allegations in court.”

In mid-October, federal authorities charged five others in a plot to kill rapper Quando Rondo — born Tyquian Terrel Bowman — in retaliation for the November 2020 shooting death of King Von. Banks is accused of bankrolling the effort to kill Bowman..

Bowman, his sister and his cousin Saviay’a Robinson, 24, were riding in Bowman’s black Cadillac Escalade near a gas station in West Hollywood in August 2022 when gunmen opened fire, according to the federal charges. Bowman and his sister were not injured, but Robinson was struck multiple times and killed.

via: Chicago Tribune

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