LOS ANGELES — There’s one essential difference between arguments at rapper A$AP Rocky ‘s trial: Prosecutors will say Thursday that the hip-hop star fired two shots at a former friend from a handgun, while defense lawyers will say he fired blanks from a gun that wasn’t real.
Jurors should begin deliberations by the afternoon on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm for the 2021 shooting. If they convict Rocky of both, he could get up to 24 years in prison.
The Grammy-nominated music star, fashion mogul and actor is the longtime partner of singing superstar Rihanna, with whom he has two toddler sons. She may appear in court for closing arguments after showing up sporadically — most recently last week, when they left the courthouse together for the first time, walking arm-in-arm.
Testimony at the trial ended Tuesday, when Rocky and his lawyers told a judge he would not take the stand.
The prosecution’s case rests largely on the credibility of the man Rocky is alleged to have fired on. A$AP Relli, whose legal name is Terell Ephron, became friends with Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, in high school in New York, where both were members of a crew of creative types called the A$AP Mob.
Their friendship continued after Rocky first gained global fame with a pair of No. 1 albums in 2012 and 2013, but by Nov. 6, 2021 their bond had become a beef.
They met up outside a Hollywood hotel, and scuffled as soon as they saw each other. In a second confrontation moments later, Rocky fired the shots. Relli said his knuckles were grazed by one of them. The fights were partially captured on surveillance videos that are not clear enough for easy interpretation.
A$AP Twelvyy, another member of the crew who was with Rocky, testified that Relli had been the aggressor, and that Rocky fired the shots as a warning to stop him from attacking another member of their crew.
Twelvyy testified that Rocky fired blanks from a starter pistol that the rapper had been carrying for security since a music video shoot months earlier, and that everyone involved in the incident knew it. Rocky’s tour manager also testified that he carried the phony gun.
Neither gun was found or presented as evidence.
Police who searched the area after a report of a shooting found no physical evidence, but Relli himself went to a police department two days later with two shell casings he said he’d picked up after returning to the scene.
In closing arguments, the defense will contend that video evidence and text messages can’t be trusted, nor can Relli. He also filed a civil suit in the case, and Rocky’s attorneys will cast him as a jealous opportunist out for the money of a former friend who became famous. Relli vowed to do just that in text messages and in phone calls recorded by a mutual friend who gave the recordings to Rocky. Relli said in his testimony that the calls were faked.
The prosecution will argue that Relli is justly seeking money after a genuine wrong was done to him. They point out that Relli’s communications around the incident tell a consistent story — and never does he mention making anything up or knowing Rocky carried a prop gun. Prosecutors are likely to argue that the whole idea of the starter pistol — which only fires blanks — is a preposterous lie coordinated by Rocky’s inner circle.
In one of a series of arguments between lawyers that grew so nasty and personal during the trial that the judge began threatening fines, Deputy District Attorney John Lewin called the prop gun argument “garbage.”
