Federal prosecutors are linking Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk to a second murder ahead of his Thursday detention hearing in Los Angeles tied to separate charges he orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot.
A newly unsealed warrant application obtained by the Chicago Tribune Thursday reportedly said the artist, born Durk Banks, was behind the Jan. 27, 2022 shooting death of Stephon Mack on Chicago’s Far South Side. According to the FBI, Mack was the leader of the Smashville faction of the Gangster Disciples, the Tribune reported.
News of Banks’ alleged connection to Mack’s killing broke just two hours before Banks was due to appear in a courtroom in downtown Los Angeles to fight for his release. He’s been in custody since his October arrest and is awaiting trial on charges he orchestrated a scheme that led to the shooting death of Georgia rapper Quando Rondo’s cousin at a Los Angeles gas station two years ago.
Banks, 32, pleaded not guilty in the Los Angeles case last month. In that case, prosecutors in the Central District of California say Banks used his hip-hop collective Only the Family, or OTF, to engage in violence. They claim he sought revenge on Quando Rondo because he believed the fellow rapper, born Tyquian Bowman, was somehow involved in the shooting death of up-and-coming artist King Von outside an Atlanta club on Nov. 6, 2020. (Banks and King Von, born Dayvon Bennett, were childhood friends, with Banks signing Bennett to his label in 2018.)
“After [Bennett’s] murder, defendant Banks made clear, in coded language, that he would pay a bounty or monetary reward, and/or make payment to anyone who took part in killing [Bowman] for his role in [Bennett’s] murder,” the superseding indictment now pending against Banks states.
Attempts to reach Banks’ legal team were not immediately successful Thursday. In a filing ahead of his detention hearing, the lawyers called Banks “a devoted husband, father, and son” and renowned artist who deserved release on a bond secured by $1 million cash and his $2.3 million equity in two homes. They said he would submit to electronic monitoring and 24-hour security surveillance.
Prosecutors said they opposed Banks’ release. In prior filings, they’ve alleged Banks learned Bowman was staying in a Los Angeles hotel in August 2022 and caused his co-defendants to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles to find him. Prosecutors allege Banks’ co-defendants “used two vehicles and worked in tandem to track, stalk, and attempt to murder [Bowman] for hours,” culminating in the gas station shooting. The gunmen fired at least 18 rounds at Bowman’s vehicle, striking and killing Bowman’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, who was traveling with him, authorities allege.
Prosecutors claim they have banking and flight records that link a Banks associate to the travel plans. They say that around the time the one-way flights were purchased, Banks allegedly told the associate, “Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit [sic] me.”
The same day several of the men traveled to California, Banks flew in on a private jet with another alleged co-conspirator, Kavon London Grant, 28, the indictment claims. Grant allegedly purchased ski masks for the shooters and used a credit card in Banks’ name to pay for the other men’s hotel room, prosecutors allege.
When Banks’ co-defendants were arrested in Chicago the morning of Oct. 24, Banks purportedly planned to leave country, an FBI agent alleged in an affidavit obtained by Rolling Stone. The agent said that “shortly after” officials made the Chicago arrests and started executing search warrants, the FBI was notified by U.S. Customs and Border Protection that Banks had been booked on separate one-way flights to Dubai and Switzerland, leaving out of the Miami area. He did not board either flight and was arrested in the vicinity of a Miami airport an hour before his private jet bound for Italy was set to depart, the agent wrote.
If convicted as charged in the Los Angeles case, Banks is facing up to life in federal prison.
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