A$AP Rocky trial brings clashing closing arguments over gun as Rihanna brings tiny sons to court
Entertainment
“Was it a real gun or was it a fake gun?” Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec said
LOS ANGELES (AP) — With Rihanna and two toddlers looking on from the audience, a prosecutor at the trial of A$AP Rocky told jurors during his closing argument Thursday that they have “one critical question” to answer.
“Was it a real gun or was it a fake gun?” Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec said. “Nothing else is in dispute.”
Both sides gave their answers during closings at the Los Angeles trial, where the hip-hop star is accused of firing at a former friend on a Hollywood street in 2021.
Przelomiec argued that Rocky was undeniably guilty of two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
The defense says the gun was a prop that fires only blanks that Rocky took for security months earlier from the set of his music video for “DMB,” which featured Rihanna.
Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said the accuser and key prosecution witness is “an angry pathological liar” who “committed perjury again and again and again and again.”
Rocky, the Grammy-nominated music star, fashion mogul and actor whose legal name is Rakim Athelaston Mayers, is the longtime partner of singing superstar Rihanna, who has attended the trial sporadically. For the first time, she brought their two sons — 2-year-old RZA Athelston Mayers and 1-year-old Riot Rose Mayers — entering the courtroom quietly but dramatically a few minutes into closings.
The boys, wearing suits, could be heard cooing as the prosecutor talked. Rihanna held one on her lap and tried to keep him quiet with a toy. During a break, Rocky walked down the hall, past jurors, holding the younger boy. Rihanna returned to court without them after lunch.
The defense will complete its closing argument on Friday. After a rebuttal from prosecutors, jurors will begin deliberations.
Rocky could get up to 24 years in prison if convicted.
The jurors are not supposed to know the possible sentence. But during testimony, Rocky’s tour manager, Lou Levin, said, “I read that he was facing 24 years,” after a prosecutor hounded him about whether he wanted to see his friend and sometime boss convicted.
