A Rocky Trial
A$AP Rocky Found Not Guilty
A$AP Rocky (Rakim Mayers), a rap artist with over 37 million monthly Spotify listeners, was recently found not guilty in a gun assault case. He faced two felony counts of assault with a semi-automatic firearm for allegedly shooting his former friend A$AP Relli (Terell Ephron).
The two used to work together, but over time their friendship grew strained. The conflict occurred in 2021 when they met to settle their differences. Relli claimed that at the scene, Rocky fired at him, grazing him with a 9mm bullet, while Rocky argued that he fired a prop gun in self-defense. The gun was not submitted as evidence, but Relli claimed to have retrieved steel casings from the scene. The trial, which lasted three weeks, had evidence such as texts and camera footage, but the jury acquitted Rocky in three hours, supposedly due to a lack of evidence and contradictory statements on the prosecution’s side. Had he been convicted, he would have been facing up to 24 years in prison.
After learning the verdict, Rocky leaped into the arms of his partner, singer Rihanna, with whom he shares two children, and hugged his lawyer. As he exited the courtroom, he thanked the jurors for “saving his life.”
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