A grand jury has added new counts to Lil Durk's murder-for-hire case, expanding the federal indictment into a broader racketeering case that now charges the Grammy-winning rapper and his associates with racketeering murder and conspiracy to commit stalking.
A third amended indictment filed Thursday includes a new charge related to the murder of a "rival gang member" in Chicago on January 27, 2022. It accuses the rapper known for the hit "All My Life," whose real name is Durk Banks, of being the leader of a dangerous Chicago street gang and offering a reward that led to the murder.
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According to the case materials obtained by the publication Rolling Stone , Banks allegedly brought $1 million in cash to a music studio after the supposed hit, and an alleged accomplice later posted a photo on social media showing off "his cash reward." The post quoted Banks' song "AHHH HA" with the lyrics, "We're driving through their neighborhoods, and they don't know it," the indictment states.
While the previous indictment focused on criminal activity dating back to 2020, the new charge extends to an earlier period, accusing Banks of participating in an attempted murder in Atlanta on February 5, 2019, which prosecutors say was "motivated by a dispute over the purchase of a stolen vehicle." After the alleged victim refused to return the money, Banks and others allegedly opened fire, "hitting and wounding" the unidentified salesperson, the indictment states.
The new racketeering murder charge, now designated Count 1, includes allegations related to the alleged 2019 Atlanta shooting and the 2022 Chicago murder, citing Georgia and Illinois statutes on murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. The charge also includes an alleged 2022 Los Angeles murder-for-hire plot, previously included in the indictments against Banks.
Banks, 33, has pleaded not guilty to the charges previously brought against him. He denies allegations that he used "coded language" to hire a group of alleged hitmen to travel to Los Angeles and carry out an execution-style murder in broad daylight on August 19, 2022. Federal prosecutors say the target was Tykian Terrell Bowman, a rapper known as Quando Rondo, whom Banks allegedly accused of murdering his friend and protégé, Davon "King Von" Bennett, in 2020.
«"This [new] allegation is an attempt to sugarcoat the facts," Banks' attorneys, Drew Findling, Marissa Goldberg, Brian Steele and Christy O'Connor, said in a statement provided Rolling Stone On Thursday evening, "For nearly two years, federal prosecutors have been desperately fighting attempts to overturn a very weak case. Now, just two months before trial—a trial Durk Banks demanded at every turn—they're making this pathetic turn, recycling old charges into a prosecutorial backup plan: to slap racketeering charges and as many unrelated false allegations as possible.".
The defense team called the new charges a last-ditch effort. "This is not a sign of strength. It's an admission of weakness. The fact remains: Durk Banks is innocent, no matter how many charges they want to bring against him," they said.
According to prosecutors, in 2022, a group of armed men stalked Bowman in Los Angeles, then followed him and ambushed him at a gas station near the Beverly Center mall, firing at least 18 shots from various weapons, including a machine gun. Authorities say Bowman's cousin, Saviah Robinson, was killed while standing near a black Escalade. Durk was arrested in October 2024 and has been held without bail since.
Banks' lawyers previously argued that the previous indictments were "unconstitutionally vague" and threatened "surprise at trial" because key facts "constantly shifted as government cooperators changed their testimony." They claimed prosecutors failed to provide sufficient detail about the time, place, and circumstances of the alleged reward offer or that the murder was committed "at the direction" of Banks.
In a court filing, Banks' defense argued that a man identified as "Prosecution Witness No. 1" initially claimed there was no reward for the murder and that he had not agreed to kill Bowman for money. The defense claimed this man later "handled the situation" and told investigators that his co-defendant, DeAndre Dontrell Wilson, had allegedly remained in Los Angeles after the shooting to collect the "reward" for distribution. The defense argued that prosecutors must have concluded this man was "lying" because the first amended indictment alleged that Wilson had agreed to distribute the purported reward, while the second amended indictment deleted this statement.
In a related motion, also filed Thursday, prosecutors said they notified Banks' defense team last month of their intention to file new charges. "The government remains prepared to commence trial on August 20, 2026," they wrote.
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