A$AP Rocky Found Not Guilty in Gun Assault Trial

A Los Angeles jury acquitted A$AP Rocky Tuesday of his two firearm assault charges stemming from a curbside altercation with former friend A$AP Relli that ended with the sound of gunfire crackling through the heart of Hollywood.

Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, stood in a tailored pinstriped suit, looking calm with his hands in his pockets as jurors filed into the courtroom for the verdict after only three hours of deliberation. Rihanna sat in the front row next to Rocky’s sister, Erika B. She bowed her head as the clerk started to read the unanimous decision.

As soon as the first of the two “not guilty” decisions was announced, Rocky dove over the gallery wall and fell into Rihanna’s lap, hugging her as she embraced him with her eyes closed. Many in the courtroom erupted in applause. The rapper addressed the jurors as they left, telling them, “Thank you all for saving my life. Thank you, thank you.”

Standing near the courthouse steps next to Rihanna and his lawyer Joe Tacopina, Mayers again thanked the jurors, saying they made “the right decision” in the closely watched case. “I’m just so thankful. This is crazy, right now. This whole experience has been crazy for the last four years. But I’m thankful, nonetheless, I’m thankful and feel blessed to be here right now, to be a free man talking to you all,” he said as cameras swarmed around him. In an Instagram story, Rihanna wrote, “The glory belongs to God and God alone! Thankful Humbled by his mercy!”

In his own remarks once Mayers and Rihanna departed in a black SUV, Tacopina revealed that shortly before the verdict was read, Mayers turned to him and said, “I can’t breathe.” But then the acquittal was announced, and his “raw emotion” took over, the lawyer said. “I didn’t realize how athletic he was. He did a single leap [into Rihanna’s arms],” Tacopina joked. “That was happiness. Before we heard the words from the clerk, he didn’t know if he was going to be spending the next two decades in jail or going home.”

A juror who spoke with Rolling Stone Tuesday evening said not all jurors were on the same page when they took their first vote early Tuesday. But it didn’t take long once they focused on the evidence, she said. The option to acquit based on self-defense didn’t really come into play, she added.

“We spent a lot of time discussing the concept of reasonable doubt, and the chain of evidence that was provided to us, setting aside personalities,” she told Rolling Stone. “It was fundamentally about reasonable doubt.”

Mayers, 36, was accused of brandishing a Glock 43 semiautomatic firearm and pointing it menacingly at Relli during an initial confrontation near a parking garage outside the W Hollywood hotel on Nov. 6, 2021. During five days of testimony, Relli, born Terell Ephron, told jurors Mayers returned the gun to his waistband but then pulled it out again and fired two shots at him a block away. Ephron claimed he immediately felt a hot sensation on his left hand and believed he was grazed by a 9 mm bullet.

Throughout the trial, Mayers didn’t dispute he pulled the trigger. Instead, he claimed through his lawyer that he was carrying a prop gun that he’d received from the set of the “D.M.B.” music video he shot with Rihanna in July 2021. Mayers claimed he fired two blanks as “warning shots” to stop Ephron’s alleged attack on A$AP Illz, another member of the A$AP Mob hip-hop collective, the lawyer said.

The 13-day trial set up dramatically different narratives of what happened that night. In Ephron’s version, adopted by prosecutors, Mayers had insulted him during an overheard phone call the day before and was ready to fight when he pulled up to the meeting with Illz, born Illijah Ulanger, and A$AP Twelvyy, born Jamel Phillips. Ephron claimed Mayers made the first physical move by grabbing his collar. He testified that Mayers threatened to kill him but retreated when he saw pedestrians approaching.

Ephron admitted he followed Mayers around a corner, taunting him. He claimed Mayers eventually turned and opened fire at the corner of Selma Ave. and Vista Del Mar Ave. but couldn’t get a clear shot because Ephron grabbed Ulanger and used him as a “human shield.” After receiving a 911 call, police responded to the scene but never found any shell casings or signs of a shooting, multiple LAPD officers testified. Ephron claimed he went back later that night and quickly found two 9 mm steel casings that he placed in a plastic bag and held for two days before handing them over to police.

In Mayers’ version, it was Ephron who was the initial aggressor that night, the one who stalked him around two street corners and couldn’t be trusted. Mayers didn’t testify in his own defense, but Tacopina subjected Ephron to a bruising cross-examination that accused him of fabricating the shell casing evidence to try to extort his wealthy friend with a $30 million lawsuit. Calling Ephron an “angry pathological liar,” Tacopina accused Ephron of deleting four critical text messages before handing his phone over to police. The deleted texts, sent to Mayers the morning of the incident, called the rapper a “pussy” and dared him to start a physical fight. “I wish you would,” he texted, adding, “Give me a reason.” The lawyer argued Ephron “perjured” himself again when he claimed phone calls recorded by a mutual friend and handed over to Mayers were “fake,” created by artificial intelligence. In the calls, Ephron said he hoped to extract millions from Mayers and then go hide from prosecutors on a tropical island. The mutual friend later authenticated the calls on the witness stand, and prosecutors accepted they were real.

In one of the most dramatic twists of the trial, Tacopina confronted Ephron with video seized from his phone that showed him shooting a semiautomatic pistol at a gun range on Oct. 19, 2021 — just two weeks before the incident in Hollywood. Ephron had just testified that he’d never fired a 9 mm semiautomatic before that night, not even at a gun range. In the video, spent shell casings were seen visibly ejecting over his shoulder. After seeing the video, Ephron told jurors the gun range was definitely not in Los Angeles. Three days later, he returned to the witness stand and said he did some “homework” and determined the range was actually the Los Angeles Gun Club. Tacopina argued that Ephron was forced into the about-face because a Twitter user posted an interior photo of the Los Angeles Gun Club that appeared “identical” to the Ephron video.

In his closing argument, Tacopina said Ephron “blatantly lied” about his access to spent 9 mm shell casings before the incident, calling his testimony “a perjury mini-series.” “Remember how that all played out here when considering his credibility,” Tacopina said. “There’d be no reason to lie about that unless he had to cover up something.” (Ephron told jurors he did not concoct any evidence in the case.)

No fingerprints were found on the shell casings handed over by Ephron and no firearm was ever recovered. Surveillance video clips showing the initial scuffle at the garage and the alleged shooting a block away were played over and over for jurors. The shooting video was recorded with no sound, but prosecutors synchronized it with the sound of two loud pops recorded from a different camera around the corner. Mayers’ lawyers used the same methodology to come up with their own synchronization. In the prosecution’s version, the first pop comes just before Ephron tangles with Ulanger. In the defense version, the first pop comes after Ephron is seen in contact with Ulanger, supporting the defense claim Mayers fired to defend Ulanger. The judge allowed both videos to be admitted, leaving jurors with the task of determining which made more sense.

Mayers’ star defense witness was A$AP Twelvyy. He told jurors Ephron was the aggressor from the start and that he believed the prop gun only came out at the parking garage because Mayers’ pants started to fall during the initial tussle, leading Mayers to grab it with his non-dominant left hand. He claimed both he and Ephron knew the gun was a prop and that Ephron even blurted at one point, “Shoot that fake-ass gun.” (In his prior testimony, Ephron denied calling the gun fake. He did recall daring Mayers to fire, allegedly saying “If you brought a gun, use it then.”)

To further corroborate his prop gun defense, Mayers called Lou Levin, a tour manager also known as A$AP Lou. Levin told jurors that Mayers got the prop gun from the set of the “D.M.B.” music video he filmed with Rihanna in July 2021 and had it with him the day of the run-in with Ephron because he carried it as a deterrent to violence. Levin said he personally returned the prop gun to the video’s co-director after the incident. “The decision was made because, like I said, [Rocky] carried it to deter violence, and on Nov. 6, it obviously didn’t work. And he decided to just get actual armed security, and he didn’t want to carry it anymore,” Levin testified. “I flew back to New York with it and gave it to the co-director we got it from.”

The high-profile trial was marked by strife between Tacopina — a pit bull lawyer famed for representing celebrity clients including Meek Mill, YG, and President Trump — and Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, known for prosecuting Robert Durst. The sniping got so heated one afternoon that after jurors left, Judge Arnold yelled “Stop it!” as Mayers stepped in between the men to signal it was time to walk away.

The proceeding also made headlines for Rihanna’s appearances in the courtroom. The superstar singer, who shares two young sons with Mayers, attended seven days of trial sitting in a front row seat. One afternoon, she appeared late in the day and greeted Mayers with a long hug in a vestibule just outside the courtroom. On Thursday, she walked in with the couple’s two toddler sons while the prosecution was starting its summation.  During a morning break, Mayers walked down the hall holding the younger boy upside down. On Valentines Day, Rihanna sat with Mayers during another break, gently caressing his cheek while the couple sat on a courtroom bench, surrounded by beefy security guards.

Speaking with Rolling Stone after the verdict, Tacopina said Mayers tried to keep Rihanna away, but she wouldn’t agree. “He wanted to protect her. But she spoke to me and said, ‘Joe, I know he doesn’t want me there, but I’m coming. That’s my partner. That’s the father of my kids. I’m coming,’” Tacopina said.

Mayer’s mother, Renee Black, attended each day of the trial to support her son. She famously named her son after one one-half of the famed New York hip-hop duo Eric B. & Rakim and raised him in Harlem. Mayers became one of the original A$AP Mob members and released his first breakthrough singles, “Purple Swag” and “Peso,” in 2011. He achieved mainstream success two years later when his first studio album, At. Long. Last. A$AP, hit Number One on the Billboard 200.

Beyond music, Mayers also is known for his substantial influence in the world of men’s fashion. He’s been the face of campaigns for Gucci, Bottega Veneta, and Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty line. He emerged from his chauffeur-driven SUV each morning looking like he just walked off the pages of a glossy magazine. There was a Chanel trapper hat, a Celine leather bomber jacket, and a Saint Laurent trench coat that got a mention in a New York Times story about Mayers’ trial style.

The trial was no doubt a stark change of scenery for the musical artist who’s been living with his billionaire partner, traveling the world and setting up the next stage of his career. As the proceeding opened, Mayers was set to headline the Los Angeles Rolling Loud California festival scheduled for March. He also was tapped to serve as co-chair of the next Met Gala alongside Pharrell Williams and LeBron James in May. Meanwhile, music fans are awaiting the imminent release of his fourth studio album, Don’t Be Dumb.

And Mayers is due to make his mainstream acting debut as one of the main characters in Spike Lee’s upcoming reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 kidnapping drama High and Low. The new film, titled Highest 2 Lowest, was shot last year in New York with co-stars Denzel Washington and fellow rapper Ice Spice. On a courthouse elevator early in the trial, Mayers asked a camera operator covering his case about his equipment, whether it was similar to a camera used by Lee. He seemed eager to talk shop, eager to change the subject to anything creative.

Prosecutors did not speak with media after the verdict, but District Attorney Nathan Hochman released a statement saying his office remains committed to “seeking accountability,” even if defendants are famous. “While today’s verdict is not the outcome we sought, we respect the jury’s decision and the integrity of our justice system,” Hochman said.

From Rolling Stone US.