LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County prosecutors rested their case Thursday at the trial of rapper and fashion mogul A$AP Rocky, who is charged with firing a gun at a former friend on a Hollywood street in 2021.
They called five witnesses in eight days of testimony, including two police officers, a police detective and a firearms expert.
But their most important witness by far was the accuser himself, Rocky’s old friend, an aspiring music manager who goes by . He was on the stand for about three days' worth of testimony, including a long and combative cross-examination.
he shouted at defense lawyer Joe Tacopina in a typical exchange. “You’re not going to keep tripping me up! You’re not slick!”
He testified that after their friendship faltered and grew into a feud, he and Rocky had a confrontation in Hollywood that led to Rocky firing two shots at him. He says his knuckles were grazed, but he was otherwise not hurt.
Rocky has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, and if convicted on both can legally get up to 24 years in prison.
Rihanna, the superstar singer who is Rocky’s longtime partner and the mother of their toddler sons, slipped into the courtroom Thursday afternoon and sat in Rocky’s section after several days of absence. She had her hair up and wore glasses with a tan trench coat on a rainy day in LA. She was for three days during Relli’s testimony last week.
The defense will now begin calling witnesses. First up Friday will be A$AP Twelvyy, a member of Rocky and Relli's A$AP Mob crew who was at the scene. The group of friends and creators dates back to high school in New York nearly 20 years ago.
The defense has not said whether Rocky will take the considerable risk of taking the stand himself, which he is not legally required to do. He already opted to take a significant risk by turning down the prosecution's pre-trial offer of a recommended sentence of just 180 days in jail and other relatively minor penalties in exchange for a guilty plea on one count.
His tour manager Lou Levin will be the second defense witness.
Raised in Harlem, the Grammy nominee had his mainstream breakthrough when his first studio album went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2013.
But his role as a fashion maven has almost eclipsed his music. He is set to be a celebrity co-host on fashion's biggest night, the , in May.
The suits he wears in the courtroom and the overcoats he wears outside it have become fodder for discussion, and inspired a story on his style.
A publicist for Yves Saint Laurent sent a new release, of the kind usually reserved for red carpets, saying that one day in court he was wearing an “Yves jacket in wool chine," a ”shirt in silk crepe de chine" and “high-waisted pants in wool chine."
His fashion sense even came up in phone recordings played in court, during which a person purported to be Relli declares that Rocky was “not a true gangster,” and that “this is the case of Dior.”
That phone recording, and others, came through a witness that the defense was allowed to call early. Wally Sajimi, an internet branding consultant who worked with both Rocky and Relli, recorded calls with Relli in 2022, and flew from Paris to Los Angeles to take the stand.
His testimony, and the calls could prove pivotal, since Relli declares that he was going to get millions from Rocky in a separate civil case and didn't care about the criminal prosecution. The defense played them for only Relli to hear as he sat in the witness stand, and he angrily declared them fake, which meant the jury couldn't hear them.
But the presence of Sajimi, who made the recordings and gave them to Rocky, allowed them to be played aloud in court.
On one, a voice resembling Relli's says suing Rocky “was my gameplan all along,” and “Once I walk away, when I get my cash, the case will get way weaker."
But in cross-examination, Deputy District Attorney John Lewin established that the stories Relli was telling on the calls were consistent with his testimony.
“Did he ever tell you at any point in time, ‘You know what? Yeah, I’m trying to get his money, but I made the whole thing up?" Lewin asked.
Sajimi said no.
“In fact, isn’t it true that what he was telling you was that that man shot at him," Lewin said, pointing at Rocky, "and Relli wanted to make sure he got his for what happened?”
The witness's testimony was a microcosm of the entire case. The verdict could depend upon how much weight they give to Relli's descriptions of the incident, his possible dishonesty about other elements like the calls, and whether they think his seeking money undermines him, as the defense has gone to great lengths to contend.
The lead detective in the case was on the stand when the day began Thursday.
LAPD Detective Frank Flores conceded under defense questioning that a surveillance video that captured the incident does not show an operating gun, or prove there was a shooting in itself.
But Flores said the behavior of the men in the video, combined with another that captured audio of gunshots, and others that showed the men before and after, lead to the conclusion there was a shooting.
The defense doesn't actually dispute that some form of the incident occurred, but they say that Rocky fired a starter pistol that shoots blanks that he carries for security.
When asked whether he could definitively establish there were gunshots, Flores said the audio provided “the distinct sound of a firearm, or ”some some kind of replica firearm potentially."
