Law&Crime Sidebar - 7 Shocking Lil Durk Connections to Another Murder Investigation

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Lil Durk, a rapper whose real name is Durk Banks, is currently facing federal charges in California for his alleged involvement with a murder-for-hire plot. Now a newly unsealed warrant reveals he has been implicated in another murder-for-hire scheme in Chicago. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the details with former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code SIDEBAR at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/sidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. As rapper Lil Dirk makes the argument that he should be allowed out on bail in the murder-for-hire trial he's facing, newly unsealed documents reveal he's actually been linked to another murder-for-hire case. And that one allegedly connects back to the death of a family member. We're going to break all of this down for you. right now welcome to sidebar presented by law and crime i'm jesse weber hey so before we jump into this i have an exciting announcement i got to tell you about first the video version of sidebar

is now available on spotify that's right we are so thankful for you guys your supportive sidebar us getting the show on spotify video truly is due to how loyal this audience is so thank you so much and yes you can now watch and listen on the go from ditty to the united health care ceos shooting to crazy court moments. It is all on Spotify now. So you can scan the QR code on screen or click the link in the description to follow sidebar on Spotify. All right, let's talk about Dirk banks, likely better known to many as Lil Dirk. He is currently in the Metropolitan Detention Center right now. No, no, no, no, not the MDC in Brooklyn in New York where we've been talking about where Sean Diddy Combs is locked up. No, this is the MDC in Los Angeles, California.

Now, Dirk has entered a not guilty plea to felony charges. in an alleged murder-for-hire plot that left a man dead at a gas station. According to prosecutors for the Central District of California, Dirk is the leader of a Chicago rap collective that's actually what they say, a criminal enterprise. A superseding indictment states, in or around 2010, defendant Dirk Banks, also known as Lil Dirk, aka Blood, aka Mustafa Abdul Malik, formed an organization called Only the Family or OTF,

which, among other things, produced and sold hip-hop music from artists. primarily from the Chicago, Illinois area. OTF also acted as an association, in fact, of individuals who engaged in violence, including murder and assault at the direction of defendant banks and to maintain their status in OTF. So prosecutors allege that banks used OTF to target a rival rapper from Georgia, known as Cuando Rondo, real name Taekwion Bowman. The government says that Dirk and his crew learned that Cuando Rondo was going to be in California so they traveled from Chicago to L.A. to target him.

And Dirk's right-hand man, Kavanaugh-Grant, allegedly secured cars, hotel rooms, and guns to carry out this killing. Investigators say that the trip to L.A. was funded by either O.T.F. or Lil Dirk directly. So the indictment accused the defendants of following Cuando Rondo's Black Escalade around Los Angeles on August 19, 2022. In fact, traffic camera photos show a white infinity following the SUV until it pulls into a gas station. And the filing also includes surveillance photos of the suspects appearing to fire guns towards the gas pumps. Now, Cuando Rondo actually wasn't hurt in this shooting, but his cousin was. Savaya Robinson was killed.

And this is a really, really sad case because this alleged assassination attempt, according to investigators, actually connects back to another death. It connects what they say back to the shooting death of a rapper known as King Vaughn outside of a nightclub in Atlanta. Now, King Vaughn was apparently part of Dirk's crew, and investigators believe that Dirk wanted revenge for King Vaughan's death, so he ended up putting out a hit on Cuando Rondo, who he believed was the investigator. So allegations of violence back and forth. Now, why are we talking about him right now? Because Dirk's name is actually coming up in another murder-for-hire investigation, this time in Chicago. So I want to be clear about something.

Dirk is not charged in connection with this case, at least not yet, but his name came up again and again and again during this newly revealed probe. So to talk about these new court documents, I want to bring in friend of the show, former federal prosecutor, Nima Romani. Nima, thank you so much for coming on before we even get into the new stuff that we're going to get into. We've said it before, but federal prosecutors, they don't tend to bring charges, especially against someone high profile like little Dirk. have any doubts about the case, right? So let's talk about the case he's currently facing. How strong do you think it is? I think it's a strong case, Jesse, and thanks for having me as always. He is facing very serious murder for hire charges less than a mile away from where I'm sitting right now in downtown Los Angeles. And like you said, the feds don't mess around and they don't

go to the grand jury to get an indictment in a case that will likely go to trial unless they think they have a bulletproof case, no pun intended. And the reason this is a federal case, of course, is we don't see a whole lot of federal murder cases, obviously unless there's terrorism or an elected official or a judge. But, you know, that murder for higher component, that makes it interstate commerce, right? We're talking about a text message likely or a phone call. That's the federal jurisdictional hook, which will put this case in the hands of the feds and not the district attorney's office here in L.A. By the way, as we're covering these kinds of stories, I think it's just a reminder of how important personal safety is. And actually, you may not think about it as much,

but protecting your privacy online is so important. I think you would be shocked at how much of your personal information is out there, like your address, your phone number. Do you ever wonder why you get so many spam calls and emails? That's because all that information is public. But that is where our sponsor, Antogni comes with. So this is a service that helps you take control of your online privacy by removing your personal data from data brokers, the huge companies that sell and trade your information without your permission. The kicker is, though, these data, Data brokers have to remove you from their database if you ask them to. You don't have to, though.

Incogni will contact those companies for you. You don't have to do a thing. And then they alert you after the request has been completed. So I highly recommend giving Incogny a try. And right now, anybody who uses code sidebar, an incogny.com slash sidebar, gets 60% off of an annual Incogny plan. Is there any avenue for him to say, I don't know anything about this? This was them acting alone.

I mean, there were arguably text messages that seemed to suggest he, was trying to make sure his name wasn't involved in it, but that would suggest a level of cooperation and knowledge about what was about to happen. And then, of course, he was picked up allegedly before he was leaving the country. So talk to me about real quick. Do you think there's any avenue for him to say,

I'm not connected to this? I'm not part of this murder-for-hire plot. I think there is, and I think that has to be the defense in this case. I can't see any other viable defense here. It's going to be a lot of finger-pointing. Obviously, we know in these calls, cooperator type cases, you want to make sure that you have corroborating evidence.

You don't want to rely on the testimony of the trigger man alone because, obviously, he is going to have a potential bias or a reason to lie to try to save himself or to shave off time from his sentence. So if you're prosecutors, you really want to make sure you connected those dots before you bring a case like this against a Grammy award-winning rapper who has significant financial means to fight this case the whole way. Well, now I want to talk about his connection, what we're talking about now is connection to this 22 murder out in Chicago. And what law enforcement was able to uncover afterwards is really, really interesting. So in 2023, an FBI special agent with the Chicago Homicide Task Force applied for a search warrant for records and location data associated with several cell phones. And as part of that application, a lengthy document was provided that laid out connections and feuds between alleged gang members. So the two rights, Gangs that are mentioned here are the Smashville Gangster Disciples and the Mike City Black

Disciples. And a man named Stefan Mack is who we're going to be talking about. He was reportedly the leader of the Smashville faction. So in January of 2022, he was apparently inside of this youth center in Chicago when a stolen Chrysler pulls into the parking lot. Okay. And the car sat there for about 40 minutes, apparently waiting for Mack to come out. This is according to police. And when he did, two men get out of the car and start shooting at him. Now, he apparently tried to run away, but one of the shooters chased him down and reportedly shot him in the head. Now, the other suspect also allegedly shot a security guard who was present, but thankfully

that guard survived. The two suspects were identified as Anthony Montgomery Wilson and Preston Powell. Both have been indicted in connection with this alleged murder. Now, Montgomery Wilson is an alleged member of the Mike City faction of the Black Disciple Gang. And surveillance photos from businesses and homes nearby actually show the shooters running away from the scene. And I want you to get this. It turns out one of the suspects actually left his cell phone behind in the stolen car. There is even a photo of it included in the search warrant application. And police, they were able to use cell phone records, DNA, fingerprints to identify both,

Montgomery Wilson and Powell as being involved in the shooting. Now, Neema, before we even get into the Little Dirk connection, your initial thoughts on this, any possible defense on this? I know you don't have all of the details of it, but you could see how these two guys were targeted. Oh, yeah, no question. And that's a very strong case, right? You have video evidence. You have the cell phone, cell site evidence.

You have fingerprint and DNA, putting them at the scene of the shooting, potentially an eyewitness, depending on what the security guard or other people saw. It doesn't get a whole lot better than that unless you have a confession or, you know, some sort of cooperate or testimony. But this strikes me, Jesse, as a very strong murder case. Well, now let's talk about what this has to do with Lil Durk, right? Well, investigators believe that this assassination was a revenge killing for the death of Dirk's older brother.

Yeah, Dante Banks Jr., who also went by the nickname D. Thang, was killed outside of a club in 2021. And authorities believe that Dirk offered money to anyone who would take out Mack as retribution. So the warrant lays out these connections between Dirk and the men that they say killed Mac. There's this confidential informant who told police that both Montgomery Wilson and Dirk that they are members of the black disciples. And the filing even includes photos showing the men hanging out together. For example, there is a photo showing what appears to be Dirk, circled in red, toward the back of a group of men and Montgomery, Montgomery Wilson, on the left side of the photo. There's another photo that shows Dirk with the alleged leader of Mike City, whose name and identity have been redacted from the filing as well, and a person referred to as confidential human source one or CH1, this confidential informant, by the FBI, gave investigators details about Dirk's alleged gang affiliations. So the 2023 filing states, CH1 has reported that Lil Durk was and still is offering money for people to kill those responsible for his brother's murder and more specifically offering to pay money for any gangster disciple that is killed.

And the filing goes on to talk about messages that are exchanged between new cell phones belonging to Montgomery, Wilson, and Powell. So according to the FBI agent's affidavit, this exchange of messages began 14 days after Mac was murdered. Based on my training and experience and knowledge of this investigation to date, I believe when the user of Powell Phone 2 asked the user of subject phone to what's up with OTF, the two were discussing Lil Durk and his affiliates. And then the filing shows a photo of Little Durk seeming to wear a sweatshirt with the OTF logo as well as a hand tattoo of those letters. And the FBI agent continues when the user of Subject Phone 2 and Powell Phone 2 exchange the

messages, nothing, and what you mean they're not paying, the user of Subject Phone 2 was indicating they had not yet been paid, prompting the user of Powell Phone 2 to question whether there was an issue with them being paid for Mack's murder. When the user of Subject Phone 2 wrote, We Waiting, he comes up here on the 17th. The user of Subject Phone 2 was indicating that he was waiting for Lil Durk to come into town on February 17th to pay them for having murdered Mac. It goes on to say, when the user of Powell Phone 2, he was indicating that he was waiting. to wrote, did Dirk gave you that money to the user of Subject Phone 2? The user of Powell Phone 2 was asking the user of Subject Phone 2 if the user of Subject

Phone 2 had gotten paid by Lil Durk for the two having murdered Mac. And when law enforcement did interviews with employees at the Youth Center, according to the FBI, employee one stated to law enforcement that they heard after Mac was murdered that there was anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000 being offered for someone to kill Mac. And the filing also has a screenshot from Montgomery Wilson's Facebook page and states on March 2nd, 2022, Montgomery updated his Facebook story with a picture of him holding money and the Lil Durk's song, aha, playing in the background. I believe Montgomery made the above Facebook post to brag and take credit for the murder of Mac. Montgomery is playing Lil Durk's music and holding a large amount of cash to brag about the fact that he was paid by Lil Durk to kill Mac. Again, Dirk has not been charged in connection with Max murder as of yet, but you have to wonder the impact this could have on his current case out in California and whether or not he could be charged.

So, Nima, I laid out a lot of the big points, your thoughts. There's a lot there, a lot of strong evidence, some of it direct, some of it circumstantial. What I would like, if I were prosecuting the Chicago case, I want to bring Little Dirk in, is something before the murders, right? You have these communications after the fact, and you need the test. tie it in to the plot before Mac was killed. I think that's an important piece of evidence. Maybe we don't have it yet. Obviously, we're talking about a pretty heavily redacted affidavit in support of a search

warrant, but we may get there because if you see these types of written communications weeks after the murders, probably there may have been something leading up to it as well. I mean, because again, if it's after the fact, Neema, right, they could just be listing anybody to pay them. I mean, you need something before, right? It's not just them mentioning Little Dirk. You need some sort of communication, maybe from Little Dirk, something to explain his connection to it.

It's not just after the fact, right? Let's say, Little Dirk had nothing to do with this, and, you know, one of his rivals is murdered, and he were to pay someone as some sort of reward. I don't necessarily think that would be criminal. There has to be some ties, some sort of conspiracy, something before the murder actually happens. Let me ask you this. if he had put out allegedly a hit on someone, right?

And he never spoke to these individuals and they kill Mac. Would he still be responsible? He's like, you know, I said that, but I didn't really, I don't know these guys were actually going to do it. Is there any kind of defense there? I don't think there's much of a defense there.

I mean, he would have to argue that it was not a valid threat or that somehow there was this conspiracy, but he withdrew from the conspiracy or wasn't really acting as an accomplice or, you know, I think that would be a pretty bad argument, especially when, you know, he is someone that is an alleged gang member. We have those affiliations. There's someone that arguably is responsible for the murder of his brother. So, you know, that would seem as a valid threat.

I think the jurors would look past that pretty quickly. Do you think an indictment would be imminent with respect to this killing? or if you're talking about something from 2023, this was part of a search warrant application, do you think that it's unlikely that he would be charged in connection with the murder of Mack? I think it's likely that he is wrapped up in it. Oftentimes, what you'll do is if you're prosecutors, they'll charge the most culpable person, and then you'll bring them in and say, this can go in two ways. You can defend this case and we'll push it to trial and you'll be convicted. Or you can proffer and fess up and be honest with us and tell us who else was involved.

and you can do yourself a favor and potentially get a less sentence. We'll make that recommendation to the judge. So, you know, it's still pretty early in terms of where the murder case is going. And as we know, obviously, all the cases cover on law and crime, but the vast majority of cases do plead out. And if this case does, it would probably be a plea with some sort of proffer or cooperation, in which case then Dirk might be wrapped up in it. I want to ask you how it affects his current charges, his current case,

because this warrant application was unsealed, because of Lil Durk's bail hearing. He was actually denied bail, possibly that this was used as evidence to show that he's a danger to society. Is that fair to use these allegations? He's not even charged in connection with the death of Mack. Is it fair to use this as evidence for him to be denied bail to say what? He's a danger to society.

Is that a fair standard? Well, it's fair because it's a much lower standard. We're not convicting someone. And we've talked about this a lot with the Dibney case, of course, right? Prosecutors, especially the feds, they love to keep their defendants in custody. There are many strategic advantages to doing so, and it also prevents additional crimes from being committed and from the defendant taking off. Now, obviously, in a little Dirk's case, there's some allegations that he was trying to board a private jet to the UAE, one-way trip. Obviously, he has an explanation for that, but to the extent that we're talking now about two hits in two different states, that's something that.

that a magistrate judge or even a district judge who's deciding whether to grant bail, that's something that they're going to consider and you don't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt or anything like that at a bail hearing. It's really a clear and convincing standard. And the judge can consider this type of evidence, even though it's just an allegation in another case. Yeah, his attorney, Jonathan Brayman, told the Chicago Tribune, we were obviously disappointed, but we'll continue to fight on. Mr. Banks remains confident and optimistic about the future. He deeply appreciates the outpouring of love and support he has felt since his arrest.

How does this case, how does the, what's alleged in this search warrant application, his alleged connection to the killing of Mr. Mack, does that factor at all into his current case with respect to the attempted killing of Cuando Rondo, the actual killing of his cousin, the murder for higher charge? Does that, would any of this come into that case? Probably not. I mean, obviously there's a lower standard of bond hearing. You're talking about whether someone's danger of the community. At trial, I think the judge would be very hesitant to bring an uncharged conduct in another case, another jurisdiction, you know, to bring in witnesses. First of all, you end up having a mini trial within a trial. I don't think it fits within necessarily any of the 404B other bad acts evidence just yet because it can be really prejudicial to bring something like that. I can see a judge, you know, really having an issue with that, especially if it's not charged. Nima Romani, thank you for breaking it down with us.

And, yeah, just another interesting little development in this case. We'll continue to see what happens next. But thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Jesse, as always. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series, add free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.