Wednesday, February 19, 2025 - Rapper A$AP Rocky has been found not guilty of felony assault, following a high-profile trial in Los Angeles.
A jury returned the verdict on Tuesday
afternoon, Feb. 18, after deliberating for just three hours.
Upon hearing the verdict, the hip-hop star,
whose real name is Rakim Mayers, turned and ran to embrace jubilant supporters
behind him, falling over as he did so.
"Thank y’all for saving my life,"
Mayers told jurors as they left the courtroom.
The rapper, 36, was charged with two felony
counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
If convicted, he could have faced up to 24 years in prison.
On the eve of trial, Mayers turned down a
prosecution offer of just six months in jail, along with probation and other
conditions, if he would plead guilty to one count.
Prosecutors alleged that Mayers twice fired
a gun at his former longtime friend and fellow rapper A$AP Relli, during a
dispute on a Hollywood street.
The pair were part of a crew who called
themselves the A$AP Mob since high school. Prosecutors alleged that the two men
met up in Hollywood on November 6 2021, and after a scuffle, Rocky
pulled the gun and fired twice at his former friend.
Relli, real name Terrell Ephron, was the
key witness for the prosecution. In his testimony, which made up the bulk of
the prosecution’s case, he said his knuckles were grazed by one of the shots,
but he was otherwise uninjured.
The defence argued that Mayers fired blanks
from a prop gun that he picked up from a music video set, bringing in two of
the rapper’s inner circle to attest to that.
Mayers’ lawyer Joe Tacopina said
in his closing argument that Ephron is “an angry pathological liar” who
“committed perjury again and again and again and again.”
Mayers is the partner of global
megastar Rihanna, who attended much of the trial and brought their two
toddler sons – 2-year-old RZA Athelston Mayers and 1-year-old Riot Rose Mayers
– to closing arguments.
However, Deputy District Attorney John Lewin suggested their presence was an
attempt to manipulate jurors.
“They brought in two adorable children...
for closing argument,” Lewin said. “They haven’t been here any other time. And
you have to ask yourselves, why children that age would be here in a situation
like this?”
He added, “You are not allowed to consider
how this might affect Rihanna and his kids. We are all responsible
for our own actions in the world.”
When the not-guilty verdict was read on
Tuesday, Rihanna cried and hugged the defense lawyers.
Rihanna later took to her Instagram Stories
to write: "The glory belongs to God and God alone! Thankful, humbled by
his mercy."
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