LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Closing arguments are expected to wrap up Friday in the trial of rapper-turned-fashion mogul A$AP Rocky, who faces two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm that could send him to state prison for years.
After attorneys complete their summations, the case will be handed to the jury for deliberations.
Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, was charged in August 2022 for his role in a pair of Hollywood street confrontations with Terell Ephron — also known as A$AP Relli — on the night of Nov. 6, 2021.
The prosecution alleges Relli was shot at twice, with one bullet grazing the knuckles of his left hand. But Rocky’s defense maintains the hip- hop star was carrying a prop gun, which could only shoot blanks and would not constitute a crime if fired. Neither gun was produced for the jury during the trial.
“This is not a difficult case,” Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec told the jury in his closing Thursday. “There’s just one important question that you have to answer, and that is did Mr. Mayers use a real gun or did he use a fake gun? … Nothing else is in dispute.”
Relli testified that he was lured into meeting Rocky outside a parking garage in an encounter partially caught on surveillance video. The Grammy- nominated music star pulled a gun from his waistband, put it toward Relli’s stomach and said, “I’ll kill you right now,” the witness testified.
The accuser said that he believed the 36-year-old rapper and fashion ambassador had become “big-headed” due to his success, telling Rocky he had “failed everybody” and that no one else was brave enough to share their honest opinions with him.
Relli alleged Rocky turned around and shot at him with a real firearm. He said he waited until he got to New York to go to a hospital days later to seek medical treatment for his three injured knuckles.
Rocky’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, maintains the gun was a “starter pistol” that only fired blanks. He claimed Rocky carried it as a prop for security reasons.
Tacopina, in his closing argument, told the jury that Relli’s five days of testimony “was like a perjury mini-series. He lied about so many things.” The attorney said that without that testimony, “there’s no evidence of a shooting. … So, Relli’s testimony is everything.”
For weeks, attorneys have sought to persuade the jury of what they believe occurred during the altercation between Rocky and his former friend. The narratives diverge on a key question: Was the gun real or was it a harmless prop?
Defense witnesses told the jury that Rocky’s close friends all knew he carried a prop pistol to scare off would-be assailants. Prosecutors countered that using a fake gun for self-protection was patently ridiculous.
“It makes absolutely no sense because it’s not true,” Przelomiec said, calling some of the defense explanations “absurd.”
The prosecutor told the panel in downtown Los Angeles that even though the incident did not result in serious injury to Relli, “This was still a serious crime.” The prosecution does not have to prove the defendant pointed the gun at Relli, or even fired it, for a conviction — they just have to prove that the gun was not a fake.
“If you find this was a real gun, the law compels you” to find Rocky guilty, Przelomiec said.
Rocky declined to take the stand in his own defense.
Tacopina urged the jury to discount Relli’s testimony, calling him “an angry, pathological liar” without whom there would be no case against Rocky.
“You have to be so offended by him just looking at you and lying,” the defense lawyer told the jury, alleging that the prosecution’s key witness “committed perjury again and again and again and again in this courtroom. … I’m not going to go through every inconsistency of Mr. Ephron’s — we’d be here until Christmas.”
During five days on the stand, Relli testified that after the altercation, he left the scene, but returned about an hour later — after police had unsuccessfully searched the area for evidence of shots fired — and found two shell casings on the street. He claimed he took the casings to police two days later, allegedly proving that a genuine firearm was used against him.
“The prosecution wants you to take him at his word that he found the casings,” Tacopina said. “He lied to you about so many crucial things.”
Rocky’s longtime partner, music star Rihanna, was seated in the courtroom Thursday morning with the couple’s two young sons, toddlers RZA and Riot. A baby’s murmuring could be heard at times throughout the courtroom during the first part of the prosecutor’s summation.
On Tuesday, attorneys for both sides came to an agreement which was read to the jury that a final prosecution witness — if called to the stand — would testify that the prop gun discussed in the case “would have ejected two fired cartridge cases as it was fired. The fired cartridge cases (allegedly found by Relli at the scene of the incident) were not fired from the prop gun.”
A$AP Twelvyy, another member of the crew who was with Rocky in Hollywood on the night of the incident, testified that Relli was the aggressor in the encounter. In jury instructions Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold told the jury that they may consider self-defense as a motive for shooting.
Deliberations are expected to begin Friday. Court is closed Monday in observance of Presidents Day.
Before opening statements last month, Rocky rejected a plea deal that would have required him to plead guilty to one of two felony charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and serve six months behind bars.
In his opening, Tacopina accused Relli of being driven by “jealousy, lies and greed,” and alleged that he fabricated parts of his story of being attacked to bolster an attempt to extort cash from Rocky.
Rocky was arrested in April 2022 upon returning to Los Angeles from a trip with Rihanna to her native Barbados. Relli filed a lawsuit for assault, battery and emotional distress against Rocky four months later.
“Mr. Ephron wants to get paid because he was the victim of a real crime by a real gun,” Przelomiec said.
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