Lil Durk, the Grammy-winning Chicago rapper born Durk Banks, was acquitted on Friday of all charges in a federal trial in Los Angeles accusing him of orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot against rival rapper Quando Rondo. Prosecutors alleged Banks blamed Quando Rondo for the 2020 killing of his friend and protégé King Von and put a bounty on him in revenge, but the jury found the government had failed to prove its case, ending the trial with an emotional acquittal for Banks, who cried as the verdict was read. He remains in custody pending a separate racketeering trial on a charge that was severed from this case.

Banks, 33, had faced five federal counts, including conspiracy to commit stalking and murder for hire, over an August 2022 shooting in which gunmen opened fire on Quando Rondo's vehicle near the Beverly Center in Los Angeles; Quando Rondo survived, but his 24-year-old cousin, Saviay'a Robinson, was killed. The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for three days, acquitting Banks while convicting his co-defendants, Deandre Wilson and David Lindsey, of stalking-related offences. The prosecution's case leaned heavily on three cooperating witnesses who had pleaded guilty, including two admitted shooters, but the defence discredited them as killers seeking reduced sentences by testifying against Banks.