Lil Durk ordered his OTF associates to kill rapper Quando Rondo in a botched shooting in 2022, according to criminal charges unsealed by federal prosecutors on Friday (October 25) — and was reportedly planning to take a private jet to Italy when was arrested.
The Chicago rapper (real name Durk Devontay Banks) was arrested Thursday night on charges of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, hours after several of his Only the Family collaborators were indicted on similar charges for their alleged involvement in his attempted murder Rondo (Tyquian Bowman).
In a new complaint unsealed Friday, prosecutors laid out their case against Durk (referred to as BANKS in the complaint) — accusing OTF of being not just a rap collective, but a “hybrid organization” that also functions as a criminal gang who has carried out violent actions “at the behest of the BANKS”.
Prosecutors say one of those acts was the attempted murder of Rondo in 2022, allegedly in retaliation for the 2020 killing of Durk's close friend rapper King Von (Dayvon Bennett).
“BANKS put out a reward for a person BANKS had a dispute with named TB,” referring to Rondo by his initials. “BANKS ordered the killing of TB and that the killers used BANKS and financial resources associated with OTF to carry out the killing.”
Lil Durk's attorney did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.
The charges came a day after Los Angeles federal prosecutors unsealed murder-for-hire conspiracy and murder-for-hire charges against several alleged OTF members — Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson and Asa Houston — as well as two other alleged gang members of Chicago. named Keith Jones and David Brian Lindsey.
In both the new charges and the previous indictment, prosecutors allege the five men were behind the 2022 shooting. But in the new filings, they directly allege Durk ordered the killing, saying it was in retaliation for a 2020 shooting in Atlanta in which an associate of Rondo's allegedly shot and killed Vaughn.
“At the time of the murder, TB was publicly feuding with BANKS,” prosecutors wrote. “The feud stemmed from a murder on November 6, 2020 where a TB associate shot and killed an OTF rapper named Dayvon Bennett aka 'King Von'. Bennett was a member of the OTF and a close friend of BANKS'.
The new records also claim that Durk was planning to flee the country when he was arrested.
Prosecutors say that after the OTF arrests, they received notice that Durk had booked commercial flights to both Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Switzerland — flights he never boarded. The FBI then allegedly learned that he had booked a private jet trip to Italy, and Durk was arrested as he approached the airport departing for that flight.
King Von, an up-and-coming rapper in the Chicago scene and Durk's childhood friend, was shot and killed outside an Atlanta nightclub on November 6, 2020, after a dispute between two groups escalated into a fight in the parking lot. A 22-year-old man named Timothy Leeks, reportedly an associate of Rondo's, was arrested a few days later, but the case was eventually dropped.
Two years later, on August 19, 2022, Rondo and his partner Lul Pab (Saviay'a Robinson) were ambushed by gunmen while sitting in their car at a Los Angeles gas station. Rondo made it out unharmed, but Robinson later died at the hospital.
According to Thursday's indictment, that killing was allegedly committed by OTF members Grant, Wilson and Houston, as well as Jones and Lindsey, who prosecutors said were “members of other gangs in Chicago.” They claim the group “used two vehicles to locate, pursue and attempt to kill TB with gunfire — including with a fully automatic firearm — resulting in SR's death.”
In Friday's complaint, prosecutors say the group carried out the attack at Durk's behest in retaliation for King Von's earlier murder. They cite a text Durk allegedly sent to another co-conspirator: “Do not book flights under any name.”
According to prosecutors, the group used “a credit card associated with OTF” to buy plane tickets to fly to Los Angeles and rent a hotel room. Using two cars, including one with false license plates, the team then tracked Rondo's SUV through the city until it reached the gas station.
“Jones and Lindsey and Co-Conspirator 2 used the firearms provided by defendant Grant – including the fully automatic firearm – to fire into TB's car, striking and killing SR, who was standing next to his car TB while TB was inside,” prosecutors write. .
After fleeing the scene, prosecutors said the group later reconvened at a restaurant, where the crime payments were broken up. Later in the day, they allegedly used the same credit card linked to OTF to buy plane tickets and fly back to Chicago.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/legal/lil-durk-ordered-quando-rondo-murder-planned-flee-country-feds-1235811786/
