Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in a trial against rapper A$AP Rocky, who is charged with firing a gun at a former friend and could get a decades-long prison sentence if convicted.
The 36-year-old has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of assault with a semi-automatic firearm, and his lawyer has said he committed no crime.
The Grammy-nominated hip-hop star, fashion mogul and actor is the longtime partner of Rihanna, and the couple have two toddler sons together. It’s not entirely clear whether Rihanna will appear in court to support him, but his lawyer has suggested it’s unlikely.
Rocky has been named one of the celebrity chairs of the Met Gala in May, and has a major role in a Spike Lee-directed film with Denzel Washington to be released soon after.
But his life could be upended with a conviction, which could lead to a sentence of up to 24 years if jurors find him guilty of shooting at his former friend in Hollywood in 2021.
Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold said he intends to seat a jury quickly, and is keeping strict limits on how long attorneys can question prospective jurors.
“I will let the jurors know that regardless of who a defendant is, whether they’re the richest person in the world or the poorest person, everybody is to be treated the same,” Arnold said at a pretrial hearing.
Opening statements could come Wednesday. Arnold is allowing media cameras in court for the entire trial after a jury is selected.
Arrested in 2023
Rocky was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in April 2023 and charged that August. A judge ruled after a preliminary hearing that Rocky should stand trial for allegedly firing a gun at Terell Ephron, a childhood friend. Earlier in that hearing, Ephron testified he and Rocky had belonged to the same collective of musicians and artists at their New York high school.
Ephron said their relationship had started to go sour and resulted in the standoff in Hollywood on Nov. 6, 2021, when he said Rocky first pulled a gun on him, and in a later confrontation fired shots that grazed Ephron’s knuckles.
Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina established while questioning a police detective that seven officers who searched a sidewalk and street about 20 minutes after the shots were allegedly fired found no evidence of the shooting, and that a pair of nine-millimetre shell casings in police possession were recovered by Ephron, who returned to the scene about an hour after the standoff.
Prosecutors showed a separate video from near the scene where no people are initially visible, but what sounded like two gunshots could be heard. A man is subsequently seen running around a corner, before slowing to a walk. The man’s identity was not immediately clear in the video.
In California courts, preliminary hearings like these are a sort of miniature version of a trial, with only a judge deciding whether sufficient evidence exists to move forward. The standard of proof for doing so is far lower than what’s required for criminal guilt.
