Courts and Crime
“Mr. Banks had nothing to do with it. He was not there," rapper's defense lawyer said in her opening statement
Lil Durk’s long-awaited criminal trial began Monday with prosecutors portraying the Grammy-winning rapper as the architect of a deadly revenge plot, while his lawyers cast him as an innocent man being falsely served up as the “big fish” by a desperate co-defendant angling for a lighter prison sentence.
Lil Durk, born Durk Banks, sat at the defense table as his lawyer, Marissa Goldberg, said Kavon Grant was initially identified by authorities as the one “in charge” of the deadly shooting. She said that when authorities busted down Grant’s door in October 2024, he realized his “only way out of jail” was to “minimize his own involvement” and give them someone bigger.
“They were pressing him about a big fish, and he thought, ‘Oh man…I’ve got an insurance policy,” Goldberg told jurors Monday. She said Grant, who worked for Banks at his music management company, Astronaut Soundz, had access to a company credit card and told investigators that he had booked travel for the group of alleged hitmen at Banks’s direction. Goldberg said that account was false.
