Grammy-nominated rapper A$AP Rocky rejected a plea deal before his high-profile felony assault case got underway in Los Angeles on Friday.
The 36-year-old rapper faces 2 felony counts of firing a gun at fellow rapper A$AP Relli during a street fight in Hollywood in 2021.
Rocky rejected a plea offer to serve 180 days in prison and seven years probation.
He could face a maximum of 24 years in prison if convicted on both counts.
A non-Black jury of five men and 7 women heard opening arguments in the case on Friday. The jury consists of Caucasian, Asian and Hispanic men and women.
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In his opening argument, the prosecutor said surveillance video outside a Hollywood hotel leaves no doubt that Rocky fired a 9mm handgun “multiple times” at Relli.
A loaded 9mm handgun was found by police during a search of Rocky’s home after the shooting.
But in a rebuttal to the prosecutor’s opening argument, defense attorney Joe Tacopina said his client admits he pulled the trigger on the gun. He said Rocky fired “two warning shots” from a “starter gun” that he always carried for his protection.
Tacopina said Rocky fired the “prop gun” to break up a scuffle between rappers A$AP Relli and A$AP Illz – 2 former members of the A$AP Mob rap collective.
Tacopina said “Rocky fired that prop gun. He fired twice, hoping the sound would be enough to scare off Relli and protect Illz.”
The defense lawyer said evidence will show lots of people in Rocky’s inner circle knew that he carried a prop gun. The prop gun came from the set of a music video Rocky filmed with his longtime girlfriend Rihanna, the mother of his 2 sons.
A$AP Relli later told police that a bullet grazed his knuckles. But Tacopina argued the prop gun was loaded with blanks.
Tacopina accused Relli of being a “perjurer and a criminal,” and the case is about “jealousy, lies, and greed.”
“This case rises or falls on his credibility,” Tacopina said. “The videos you saw, without [Relli’s] testimony, prove absolutely nothing,” Tacopina added.
The prosecutor showed the jury several videos. One video recorded near a parking garage showed four people fighting in the street. A man wearing a dark hoodie pulls out a gun and points it at Relli.
Tacopina said that Relli was not scared because he “knew that gun wasn’t real.”
Another video captures the sounds of 2 gunshots from a block away.
The jury also heard a 911 call from a woman with an Australian accent. “There’s been a shooting,” the woman says. “We watched it. There were four men, and they were kind of fighting.”
The prosecutor showed jurors a photo of Relli’s bloody knuckles. The state said that the injuries may have come from the shooting, but that was irrelevant to the charges.
Tacopina mocked the photo of the scrapes on Relli’s knuckles. “Oh my god, how is he gonna survive that scrape on his knuckles?” the defense lawyer said in open court.
Recently, Rev. Al Sharpton complained that Rocky (real name Rakim Mayers) can’t get a fair trial because the men and women on the jury don’t look like him.
But others have noted that Rocky once said he doesn’t understand the language of poor people because he has homes in SoHo and Beverly Hills.
