By FRED SHUSTER
Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil Durk is facing a federal murder conspiracy charge in Los Angeles in connection with an August 2022 killing near the Beverly Center, according to court papers obtained Friday.
The 32-year-old Chicago rapper, whose real name is Durk Banks, was arrested Thursday in South Florida and was being held by the U.S. Marshals Service, authorities said.
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. Five alleged members of Banks’ “rap collective” were also charged.
FBI Special Agent Sarah Corcoran alleged in an affidavit filed Thursday 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.
Multiple members and associates of Banks’ collective — known as Only the Family, or OTF — used two vehicles and worked in tandem to track, stalk and attempt to murder Bowman at a gas station, according to the affidavit.
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 agent’s affidavit states.
On Oct. 17, a Los Angeles federal grand jury returned an indictment charging five alleged co-conspirators — 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.
Banks was identified as co-conspirator number one in the indictment, 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 was scheduled to be released next month.
Based on the investigation, according to the FBI, evidence shows 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 the affidavit.
Man shot to death at gas station near Beverly Center, suspects at large
According to the FBI agent, 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.
Earlier Thursday, federal and local law enforcement executed multiple search warrants at locations associated with OTF members in and around Chicago, and arrested Grant, Wilson, Jones, Lindsey and Houston, Corcoran wrote.
After executing the warrants, the FBI learned that Banks had been booked on at least three international flights scheduled to leave the United States on Thursday. When Banks arrived near one of the departing airports, he was arrested by law enforcement personnel.
It was not immediately clear when Banks and his co-defendants would make their initial appearances in federal court in downtown Los Angeles.
