Was the gun real? Jurors will decide ASAP Rocky’s fate in Hollywood shooting trial
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If the gun is legit, you can’t acquit.
Echoing a famous line from another celebrity trial held in downtown Los Angeles, L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Przelomiec told jurors deciding the fate of ASAP Rocky that the case boiled down to the simple question of whether the rapper’s claim that he wielded a fake gun in an alleged shooting was believable.
“There’s only one important question in this case … did he use a real gun or did he use a fake gun?” he asked. “Nothing else is in dispute.”
The contentious three-week trial centered on a collapsing friendship within the ASAP Mob rap crew that culminated with a confrontation outside the W Hotel in Hollywood. Prosecutors claim Rocky — whose legal name is Rakim Mayers — fired two shots after a heated argument.
His lawyers claim he’s being falsely accused, maintaining that the weapon was a prop he took from the set of a music video filmed with his paramour, the pop star Rihanna.
With partner Rihanna in court in support, Rakim Mayers — who raps as ASAP Rocky — faced testimony from his former collaborator, the alleged victim of a 2021 Hollywood shooting.
Rocky faces nearly 20 years in prison if convicted of two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
Prosecutors said the incident on Nov. 6, 2021, began when Terrell Ephron, aka ASAP Relli, went to meet up with Rocky to repair their crumbling relationship. The divide between the two had been exacerbated by Ephron’s mistaken belief that Rocky failed to pay for another ASAP member’s funeral. Authorities allege Rocky showed up with two other members of ASAP Mob and a gun intent on settling their dispute with violence.
Video of the incident clearly captures Rocky holding a gun, but the footage of the actual shooting is grainy. There is no forensic evidence tying Mayers to the alleged attack, and an initial police canvass of the crime scene in response to a 911 call turned up no evidence of a shooting, according to LAPD officers.
The only witness identifying Rocky as the shooter is Ephron, who struggled during his cross-examination. Defense attorney Joe Tacopina painted him as a “perjurer” who contacted police only after retaining a civil lawyer to sue his former friend. Ephron claimed he recovered shell casings at the scene of the crime and turned them over to police two days later when he reported the shooting.
At the outset of trial, Tacopina admitted Rocky was the person seen opening fire in the video — but the lawyer contended his client used a fake weapon that only fired blanks. Several defense witnesses testified Rocky began carrying the faux firearm after he was attacked in a nightclub.
Prosecutors began laying out their case Friday against hip-hop star ASAP Rocky, aka Rakim Mayers, in a 2021 shooting incident in Hollywood. If convicted, Mayers faces nearly 20 years in prison.
During closing arguments, Przelomiec described the prop gun defense as a desperate, eleventh-hour attempt to rewrite the facts.
The prosecutor carefully dissected the key defense witnesses, questioning why the two ASAP crew members who were with Rocky on the night of the shooting never told police the weapon was a fake in the years between the shooting and trial. Przelomiec also asked why Rocky’s manager returned it to the co-director of the music video instead of preserving it as evidence for trial.
“Has the defense proved to you that this prop gun ever existed? You would want to hear from the co-director that has it now,” the prosecutor said.
That person was never called as a witness by the defense.
Przelomiec dismissed testimony about the prop gun from other ASAP Mob members — Jamel Phillips, aka ASAP 12vvy, and Rocky’s tour manager, Louis Levin, aka ASAP Lou — as “convenient” fictions from people who rely on Rocky’s success for their own income.
Tacopina spent his closing argument tearing into Ephron’s credibility, calling him “the worst witness in the history of American jurisprudence,” who only cooperated with police to extort his superstar former friend. He also contended the prosecution failed to prove a real firearm was used in the incident.
While police found several firearms during a search of Rocky’s home, including a .44 magnum at his bedside, none of the weapons matched the shell casings Ephron turned over. The search did turn up a magazine which a firearms expert testified could have held the rounds recovered by Relli.
Levin, however, testified the magazine was his and he left it at Rocky’s house after a night of drinking.
Tacopina raised the idea that Ephron planted the shell casings after catching him in multiple lies during cross-examination.
Ephron said “definitely not” when asked if he’d gone to a shooting range in the weeks before the incident, only for Tacopina to produce video that showed him firing a handgun at a downtown L.A. range just weeks before the alleged attack.
Przelomiec countered that Ephron traveled from L.A. to New York and back before the shooting, arguing it would have been impossible for him to transport spent shell casings through security.
Ephron claimed audio of him on a phone call discussing the shooting with a mutual friend was “fake.” But another tape surfaced that captured him discussing what he would do if he received a civil settlement in the shooting before trial.
“I’ll walk away, basically, its going to be hard for the D.A. to find me because I’m going to be on another island just relaxing,” Ephron said on the recorded phone call, which Tacopina played again near the end of his closing argument.
“This isn’t about justice for him,” Tacopina said Friday. “It’s about a payout, and a payback.”
Lewin, however, has argued that the recording was a strong piece of evidence for the prosecution, as it boosted Ephron’s credibility and showed him describing the shooting in private the same way he did in court.
Ephron’s injuries in the shooting were minor, amounting to a pair of small cuts on his hand. While prosecutors don’t need to prove an actual injury to meet the elements of the assault charge, Tacopina has hammered on the “scrapes” as proof Rocky was firing blanks that night.
“Knuckle scrapes? Even they don’t believe that’s a gunshot wound,” Tacopina said. ”There’s no bullet in the world that could have done that. It scrapes the top of one knuckle, does a bit of a dive to the second knuckle … and then scoots along. That would be one heck of a magic bullet to do that.”
Tacopina also made a self-defense argument, contending Rocky shot the blanks to protect himself after Ephron started the confrontation and punched Phillips. Footage from the scene doesn’t appear to capture Ephron attacking anyone, and Przelomiec has displayed pictures of Phillips from the day after the shooting with no visible injuries on his face.
Rocky declined to testify in his own defense and sat impassively through most of the trial, except for the few times Rihanna has appeared in the gallery. She watched Przelomiec’s closing with the couple’s two children nearby, and Rocky could be seen playing with one of his sons in the hallway on Thursday.
Tensions between Tacopina and Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lewin, who was added to the case at the last minute in January, ran high throughout the trial.
The veteran prosecutor, who famously won a murder conviction against real estate heir Robert Durst, is known for his firebrand personality. He has repeatedly accused Tacopina of unethical behavior and misconduct between aggressive cross-examinations of defense witnesses. At one point in the trial, he claimed Tacopina challenged him to a fight; Tacopina later mocked Lewin over misconduct allegations he faced in the wake of the Durst trial.
The mercurial hip-hop star allegedly mistreated Jewish employees inside his fashion company and compared himself to Adolf Hitler, according to a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday.
On Friday, after Lewin accused Tacopina of making false misconduct allegations against the prosecution during his closing arguments, the two exploded in a heated exchange of insults. Lewin threatened to go public with “everything that has gone on in this trial,” and Tacopina responded by laughing in the prosecutor’s face. Lewin then accused Tacopina of being on steroids, before Tacopina called him “fat” and a “hunchback.” Tacopina was guided out of the room by his associates, while Rocky flashed a wide grin.
Lewin previously said he would not comment on an ongoing trial. Przelomiec declined to answer questions about what Lewin was referencing.
L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold shouted down both brash attorneys at various points in the trial, and said he is planning to hold a hearing to weigh monetary sanctions against both Tacopina and Lewin, according to a court spokesperson.
Celebrity drama and courtroom fireworks aside, Przelomiec maintained Thursday that the case is very simple.
“When you decide the gun in this case is a real gun,” he said. “This case is over.”
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