Law&Crime Sidebar - Rapper A$AP Rocky Headed to Trial for Allegedly Shooting at Friend

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

A California judge found there’s enough evidence against A$AP Rocky, real name Rakim Mayers, to send him to trial in the new year. His former friend and fellow member of the A$AP Mob hip-hop collective A$AP Relli says Rocky shot at him during an argument. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber speaks with criminal defense attorney Lawrence Zimmerman about what we can expect during the January trial.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Thanks to Uncommon Goods for sponsoring this video! To get 15% off your next gift, go to https://uncommongoods.com/CRIME10 HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest 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 Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. California rapper will spend some of his holiday season preparing to go to trial on assault charges. Will the evidence against Aesap Rocky stand up in court? We're talking to criminal defense attorney Lawrence Zimmerman about the case. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. There is another rapper who's going to be headed to court in the new year

facing charges for alleged violence. ASAP Rocky, a musical artist, partner of pop sensation Rihanna. He's accused of firing a semi-automatic handgun at a former friend and member of the same hip-hop collective ASAP Raleigh, or Terrell Ephron, and injuring him. Bullet fragments allegedly hit his hand. And this all happened after the two got into some argument two years ago. While Rocky was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport in April of 2022,

he was released on bail the same day after posting a $550,000 bond. Rocky, whose real name is Rakeem Mayors, pleaded not guilty to two counts of assault with a firearm. Now, in a recent development during a preliminary hearing on Monday, a Los Angeles judge ruled, that there is enough evidence for Rocky to stand trial, which is currently scheduled for January 8th. And he could face years in prison if convicted. Raleigh also filed a civil suit against Rocky for assault, battery, emotional distress. There are a lot of layers to this.

So I want to bring in right now criminal defense attorney Lawrence Zimmerman to talk about the case. Lawrence, so good to have you. Thanks for coming here on sidebar. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. So first, your reaction to... the judge deciding that there is enough evidence to go forward with the criminal trial?

Well, that's not unusual. That's a preliminary hearing. So the standard of proof is only probable cause, which is a very low standard, meaning whether or not someone probably committed a crime. So that's not surprising in the least. Typically, judges normally, unless there's some really, really something strong defense presents or something really lacking on the government side, most judges find probable cause. All right, let's take a sidebar from sidebar right now to talk about the holiday season

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What do you think was the key piece of evidence to determine that there was enough probable cause here? Well, I mean, well, the witness, Ephron, you know, his statements, I think there's an audio recording where there are shots heard and the police are identifying ASAP Rock. He's a person with the hoodie. So let's get into that. Let's get into that. First we'll start with what the alleged victim said, Raleigh. So he testifies in court. And I thought it was interesting because apparently there was this beef between him and Rocky. It was brewing. It seemed like it might have been spawned over

financial payments related to the death of their fellow collaborator, ASAP Josh, and how his body was going to be transported. But Raleigh said that at one point, he sees ASAP Rocky and these two friends in front of a parking garage in L.A. And CCTV footage, there's no sound in it, where you see allegedly Rocky pushing Raleigh. And Raleigh testifies, quote, he grabbed me on my collar. He was shaking me. I tried to push him off, get his hands off. That's when he pulled a gun from his waistband. It was a standard clip and a semi-automatic black gun. He pointed it toward my stomach. And then he said that Rocky said, I'll kill you right now. And then you could see on the tape what appears to be the men in some type of altercation, Raleigh says,

Rocky turned around and shot at me, said that he was apparently about 16 feet away from him, said it all looked like a movie, and that he said that Rocky shot three or four more times at him, and that Ralee even used one of his friends there as a human shield. So could it be that that testimony alone was sufficient to say that there's enough to go forward with a trial? Yeah, absolutely. A judge could give credit to any witness's testimony. The judge is, you know, it's not a jury trial. So the judge is the one who's sitting there determining credibility. So the judge, what we would say credited Ephron's testimony and found it reliable, then absolutely that could be the sole basis for probable cause. Again, not a trial where the burden's proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The problem is, I would say, you know, look, this is at this point, you know, like you said, the standard's much lower. But is it enough to ultimately convict ASAP Rocky?

Well, that's where it gets interesting. Because his attorney, Joe Takapina, he argued during this preliminary hearing that there wasn't enough evidence. And one of the things that he said was there was a detective that testified that Rocky was seen on other surveillance footage holding a gun in his hand during the altercation. Takapina says that's not his client. That this surveillance video allegedly shows an area near this fight. This is different surveillance footage.

and there are two loud pops that can be heard, but you don't actually see the shooting. What you do see is a man running around the corner, then appears to slow down to a walking pace. The detective says that is ASAP Rocky because they compared that, a still image of the CCTV footage, of this guy in a sweatshirt,

can't see his face holding what appears to be a gun with another image from a video where you see his face, but you don't see the gun, they say it's Rocky. So they're combining these images and they don't have a clear video of the shooting. They don't have a clear video of ASAP Rocky, you know, firing the gun and doing this because that would be probably a smoking gun.

But they're piecing it together. And Takapina says that's not enough. Well, I mean, it may not be enough. And, you know, obviously Takapina is a great lawyer and the police and the prosecutors will have to piece all that evidence together. And I'm sure showing some sort of chronological time log. lining it up with the video. Like that, if you're a prosecutor, that's not necessarily,

that's not really how you want to prosecute ASAP Rocky. You'd want to have much harder evidence. And we don't know the backstory. There may be, who knows why this guy, Efron, may be lying about Rocky. Again, jealousy, you sort of mentioned at the top over a friend, and he may be lying. And so this may not be ASAP Rocky, obviously. That's why we have trials.

And certainly doesn't tell you there's hard proof right now, right? I mean, and if Rocky was in the vicinity for another reason, someone else fired the shot, I mean, these are all things that will come out and do time as when the trial gets closer or when the trial happens. How complicated is it for prosecutors that the gun has never been found? Because police executed a search warrant on Rocky. They never found the weapon. Before we even get into the issue of the shell casings, which we will get into in a minute,

if you don't have the actual weapon that was allegedly used here, is that a real big, hurdle for the prosecutors? I mean, it's definitely a hurdle. I mean, it's not insurmountable, but if you're a prosecutor, you'd certainly like for there to be the weapon used. And if you're a defense lawyer,

that gives you more room to create doubt as well. I mean, now we don't know there's any fingerprints on that gun, got to match it up with the nine millimeter shell cases which you're going to talk about. There's nothing in Rocky's house showing you had that kind of firearm. So those are all favorable defense.

I mean, these could have just been two shots that went off. in a parking lot or somewhere nearby. This guy at fraud was claiming he was shot at and trying to, who knows, try to make him some story about Rocky. Yeah, and I'm sure prosecutors would say, well, of course we don't have the gun, you know, he got rid of it or something like that. I will say Takapina made another interesting argument about the video and the person holding this item because he says he was trying to get press to the detective a little

bit, you don't know if it's a gun or not, and you don't even know if it's operable or not. I thought that was an interesting line of questioning. Right, because in order to be charged with certain crimes, if it's possession of firearms or a condition of felon, they have to show that the gun was operable. I mean, they could still probably. And if it was, in fact, a gun, if it was a gun in his hands. Correct, yeah.

Well, that would make sense of the being a non-operable firearm. Well, yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, unless there was like, you know, it was a prop of some kind and it was using it as a threat. I don't know. That's kind of speculated. But I do want to ask you. about the shell casings because this is fascinating.

So the shell casings that were found at the scene, no fingerprints on them. And Takapina attempted to show that seven officers had searched the scene of the alleged shooting for 20 minutes after this, found no evidence. And the 9mm shell casings actually were turned over to police by Raleigh, by Efron, the victim in this case. He comes back to the scene an hour after the incident. What do you make of that? So I think that's like the biggest, the best piece of evidence for the defense that the police who are supposedly the experts in searching crime scenes finding, you know, looking at ballistics, finding shell casings, don't find anything.

And all of a sudden miraculously after nothing's found an hour later, the guy who has a beef with Rocky ASAP comes back with the shell casings. that to me is like the talk about a great piece of evidence evidence for the defense. I mean, that is, that's fantastic. It's weird. I'm not going to lie to you. It's weird. And he said, my understanding is Rely said, look, I didn't immediately call 911. I waited two days because I wanted to retain a lawyer first.

Your thoughts on that because, A, him holding on to the shell casings and then getting a lawyer and then contacting police, what do you think? Those are all terrible pieces of evidence. evidence. It's all terrible for the prosecution. That's great for ASAP Rocky. Anybody who's in fear for the life is getting shot at is going to call the police ASAP, no pun intended, or pun intended. And, you know, that's, and then you hired a lawyer. That looks to me and smells like someone who's looking for a money settlement. You know, I'm now threatening to use the criminal laws to get that money. So that's, that's what it reeks like to me. I mean, that's good for ASAP Rocky. And so look, yeah, I mean, I'm not.

Enough evidence to go forward with a trial, but this could be problematic for the prosecution. I'm adding on top of the fact that there was a photo that was introduced into evidence of Rely's injuries. I think you could argue perhaps somewhat minor. I mean, if there was a real shooting, thank goodness, no one was killed or severely injured. And you see like these bloody skin on his knuckles on his left hand where he says the bullet fragments hit. But one of the things Tacapina pointed out was Raleigh waited till. he was in New York, I was in Los Angeles, wait until he was in New York to be treated for the injuries. Well, how does that factor into this? Again, another great piece of evidence. I mean,

someone fires a shot at you from 16 feet. They miss, give them your knuckles. You don't call the police. You don't even do anything to get treatment. I mean, how serious could it have been? It just sounds, it sounds like someone who's full of it. That, that, setting aside the initial stuff as far as probable cause, these pieces of evidence, certainly create a wide opening for the defense to pushed through and not guilty or dismissal. I mean, this case may never reach trial with these. If Tacopina can take what he asserted at the prelim, which is a lot of times what you do as a lawyer,

you set up your defense for later, then present the prosecution with that evidence, then they may end up in dismissal. He got a little, he got called out by the judge a little bit too. I mean, he was, I think he said in court, when looking at this photo, it's a miracle that he survived. He's being sarcastic. That kind of tone he was told to,

check it a little bit. Is that a problem in that kind of loss, in that kind of criminal trial? No, if you're not getting and monitored for the judge about your attitude, you're not doing your job. Is that what you think? 100%. I'm not worried about the judge. I'm worried about the jury. I'm worried about making my case for presenting my client. Lawyers are worried about getting objected to during opening statements because they make an argument. I always tell lawyers, if you're not getting objected to an opening argument, then you're not really doing a good job. That's so funny. But Lawrence, when you think about the evidence, I believe only two witnesses testified in this preliminary hearing.

There are going to be more that testify at an upcoming trial, potentially other eyewitnesses to what Rocky allegedly did. I'm reminded of the Tory Lane's, making the stallion case, a little bit different, some bad evidence there for Tori Lane. He was convicted, sentenced to 10 years in prison. But even though we've been calling out some of the deficiencies in what we see in the prosecution's case, they feel they have enough. to actually go forward with it. They feel they have enough to convict them as of right now. Well, they always do.

That's the game they're playing, or they just may not understand the defense. But if, like I said, if Paco Pino's played the correct foundation, they can present that evidence, they may rethink their position or they may, let's see if we get a conviction and do what happens.

And, you know, with what we've just talked about, I mean, it sounds like there's a lot of holes in the prosecution's case, especially the delay, especially with the fact that he present, I mean, the fact that he presented the shell casings, to me, he's like a big, big red flag as far as bringing this case against ASAP Rocky. So that's the criminal case, right? And when we talk about the standards, he's also being sued where the standard is lower.

So Raleigh is suing Rocky. And he's claiming, quote, in the lawsuit that Rocky pulled out a handgun, purposely pointed it in the direction of Raleigh, fired multiple shots. Riley was struck by bullet projectiles or fragments in his left hand, required medical attention, and he is seeking at least $25,000 in damages. Walk me through what we can expect from the civil case. So in other words, even if the criminal case were to be dismissed, that doesn't necessarily affect the civil case, right? Yeah, well, gosh, I'm probably dating myself at this point,

but the easiest example will always tell he was remember O.J. Simpson, he was acquitted in criminal court and, you know, liable and civil court. So they'll just sue him civilly and get a judgment. And there, the standard proof is preponderance of evidence. So more likely than not that, you know, 51% to 49% of the evidence shows he committed the crime. And so then they could award a judgment. He's not asking for a lot of money. So the fact that he filed a civil suit certainly helps create doubt in a criminal case.

But he's only asked for $25,000. I think that that doesn't help as much as you would want it to help in the criminal case. Because if he's suing him for $10 million, then clearly he'd argue. this is all a lie. This guy just wants to get rich off the back of ASAP Rocky. Right. And because the extent of the injuries are, you know, relatively minor, he is suing him for assault, battery, emotional distress.

How much does the fact that he has these grazing on his knuckles as the only kind of physical injury? I mean, he is suing for emotional distress. I mean, it certainly plays a factor into it. You know, I think injuries obviously know how emotionally distressed he could be from the graze. I mean, I was someone full of fire. firearm and shot at him. I don't know his background and history if he's been involved in shootings before. It was me certainly be pretty frightening. So it's hard to gauge. I think his background would play a factor into it. But yeah, certainly the distress is getting shot

at. The injuries are not substantial at all. Lawrence Zimmerman, interesting case. Appreciate your perspective, sir. Happy Thanksgiving. You too. Thank you. And that is all we have for you right now here Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. Spotify.