LOS ANGELES (AP) — A$AP Rocky’s lawyer is predicted to complete delivering his closing argument Friday on the hip-hop star’s trial, the place the protection is making an attempt to steer jurors that the previous buddy Rocky is charged with capturing at took the stand and “lied to you about so many crucial things.”
Closing arguments started Thursday, when Rocky’s longtime accomplice, the singing celebrity Rihanna, walked quietly into the downtown Los Angeles courtroom after proceedings started, as she has a number of instances in the course of the three-week trial. She introduced their two younger sons.
Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina reminded the jurors that their directions permit them to ignore every thing a witness says if the jurors imagine they’re being dishonest in any a part of their testimony.
He advised them in the event that they try this with Rocky’s accuser, who goes by A$AP Relli, “there is no case.”
“This is a man whose tongue is a stranger to the truth,” Tacopina mentioned. “The important facts he gave you turned out to be lies.”
Jurors are anticipated to start deliberations on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm after the protection finishes its closing and prosecutors supply a rebuttal.
Within the prosecution’s closing argument, Deputy District Legal professional Paul Przelomiec advised jurors they’ve “one critical question” to reply.
“Was it a real gun or was it a fake gun?” he mentioned. “Nothing else is in dispute.”
He advised jurors the “overwhelming proof on this case is that it was an actual gun” that Rocky fired on a Hollywood avenue nook on Nov. 6, 2021.
The protection says the gun was a prop that fires solely blanks that Rocky took for safety months earlier from the set of his music video for “DMB,” which featured Rihanna.
Rihanna held considered one of her sons on her lap and tried to maintain him quiet with a toy as she watched. Throughout a break, Rocky walked down the corridor, previous jurors, holding the youthful boy.
Rocky might obtain a sentence of as much as 24 years in jail if convicted.
Rocky and Relli turned pals in highschool in New York. Each had been members of a crew of inventive sorts known as the A$AP Mob.
Their friendship continued after Rocky gained international fame with No. 1 albums in 2012 and 2013, however by 2021 their bond had change into a beef.
They met outdoors a Hollywood lodge and scuffled. In a second confrontation moments later, Rocky fired the pictures. Relli mentioned his knuckles had been grazed by considered one of them.
Tacopina known as the damage “knuckle scrapes.”
“There’s no bullet in the world that could’ve done that,” Tacopina mentioned, displaying jurors an image of Relli’s hand.
A$AP Twelvyy, a buddy who was with Rocky, testified that Rocky fired blanks from a prop gun that everybody concerned knew he carried. His tour supervisor testified to the identical. Each had been clearly coached and coordinated, Przelomiec mentioned.
“What they got on the stand and told you were lies,” he mentioned.
Neither facet produced a gun as proof.
“There’s actually no proof of a prop gun,” the prosecutor mentioned.
Tacopina countered that “there’s definitely a lot less evidence of a real gun.”
