LOS ANGELES (CNS) – New charges have been lodged against Grammy Award- winning rapper Lil Durk, who was previously facing a federal murder conspiracy charge in Los Angeles in connection with an August 2022 killing near the Beverly Center, officials announced Friday.
The 32-year-old Chicago rapper, whose real name is Durk Banks, is charged in a superseding federal indictment, returned late Thursday, that adds two felony counts against him.
Banks is now charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death, and one count of using, carrying, and discharging firearms and a machine gun and possession of such firearms in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The updated indictment filed in Los Angeles federal court adds Banks as the lead defendant to a previous indictment returned last month against five alleged members and associates of Banks’ rap collective — known as Only the Family, or OTF.
Banks is accused of ordering the murder of Tyquian Bowman, a Georgia rapper called Quando Rondo, whose cousin was killed in a botched ambush two years ago near the shopping mall.
Banks was arrested on Oct. 17 near Miami International Airport after law enforcement learned that he had been booked on multiple international flights. A federal magistrate judge in Miami ordered him jailed without bond until he is transferred to Los Angeles for arraignment.
All six defendants — none of whom has yet entered a plea to the charges — are expected to be arraigned in federal court in downtown Los Angeles in the coming weeks.
Prosecutors contend that Banks put a bounty on Bowman after an associate of Bowman killed a close friend of Banks’ two years earlier at a nightclub in Atlanta, Georgia.
Around Aug. 18, 2022, the alleged conspirators learned that Bowman was staying at a hotel in Los Angeles. The next day, Banks’ five friends traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles “for the purpose of murdering” Bowman, federal prosecutors allege.
Members and associates of OTF allegedly used two vehicles and worked in tandem to track, stalk and attempt to murder Bowman at the gas station, according to court papers.
The co-conspirators fired at least 18 rounds at Bowman’s vehicle, striking and killing one of Bowman’s family members who was traveling with the intended target, the DOJ alleges.
The 19-page superseding indictment charges Banks and five others — Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, Keith Jones, David Brian Lindsey and Asa Houston — with crimes arising from the murder, including murder-for- hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death.
Federal prosecutors contend that Banks ordered Bowman’s murder and ultimately paid for the alleged co-conspirators to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles on the day before the killing. Around the time that the flights were purchased, records show that a phone number associated with Banks texted a co- conspirator: “Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit (sic) me,” according to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint.
The affidavit says Banks flew on a private jet from Miami to Los Angeles with Grant. Grant used Banks’ credit card to book a room at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, where the five-man alleged hit team stayed the night before they tracked down Bowman, according to the affidavit, which contends Grant purchased ski masks for the shooters to use to commit the murder.
Banks, meanwhile, stayed at a rented home in Encino, the document says.
The rapper won a Grammy earlier this year for best melodic rap performance. His albums “The Voice” and “7220” both sold more than 1 million copies each. A new Lil Durk album, his ninth studio album, is scheduled to be released on Nov. 22.
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