Lil Durk Trial: Kacey 'OTF Jam' Hester's Testimony — and Whether It Holds Up

While two state murder trials hold the country's attention this week, the highest-stakes courtroom in America might be a federal one in downtown Los Angeles — where Durk Banks, the Grammy-winning rapper known to tens of millions as Lil Durk, is on trial facing mandatory life in prison.

There are no cameras. There will be no livestream, no viral verdict clip — federal court doesn't allow them. Which is exactly why this page exists: a running file on what is actually happening in United States v. Banks, updated as the trial unfolds. We've also pulled the case's actual court file — the FBI affidavit and the government's trial memorandum — and read the documents the headlines are built on here.

The allegation: a bounty born from a murder

The government's theory begins with a different killing entirely. In November 2020, King Von — Dayvon Bennett, Durk's close friend and his label's brightest star — was shot and killed outside an Atlanta hookah lounge in a confrontation involving the entourage of Georgia rapper Quando Rondo (Tyquian Bowman).

Prosecutors allege that Durk put a bounty on Rondo in revenge — and that in August 2022, members of his Only The Family (OTF) circle acted on it, tracking Rondo to a gas station near the Beverly Center in Los Angeles and ambushing him. Rondo survived. His cousin, Saviay'a "Lul Pab" Robinson, 24, who was with him, was shot and killed.

The federal charges that followed — filed after Banks's October 2024 arrest near Miami — total three counts: conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death, and discharging firearms, including a machine gun, in a crime of violence resulting in death. Banks has pleaded not guilty to all of it, has denied ever placing a bounty on anyone, and is presumed innocent unless and until a jury finds otherwise.

One pretrial fight is worth knowing about: an early version of the government's case pointed to Durk's rap lyrics as evidence — until the defense showed the cited verse had been recorded before the shooting, and prosecutors backed away from it. The episode became a flashpoint in the national debate over lyrics used as criminal evidence, and it is part of why the defense argues the government's case is built on inference rather than proof.

The trial: who's in the room

After three postponements — January, then May, then August — jury selection began August 20, 2026, before U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald, with opening statements on August 24–25. The trial is expected to run several weeks.

• The prosecution. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Weiner opened by telling jurors the case is about "revenge, stalking and pre-meditated murder" — a financed plot with Banks at the top of it.
• The defense. Attorney Marissa Goldberg answered flatly: "Mr. Banks had nothing to do with it." No evidence, the defense argues, shows Durk paid anyone for a killing — and the trip to Los Angeles, they contend, was organized independently by his former assistant, Kavon Grant. Also at the defense table: Brian Steel, the Atlanta attorney best known for defending Young Thug in the YSL trial.
• The co-defendants. David Lindsey and Deondre Wilson are on trial alongside Banks; both have pleaded not guilty. A request to sever Banks's trial from his co-defendants was denied.
• The cooperators. The government's case runs through three former insiders who took plea deals: Grant, Keith Jones, and Kacey "OTF Jam" Hester — all expected to testify. As with the Bridegan murder-for-hire trials, the fight over cooperator credibility will likely decide the case: men testifying under agreements with the government, describing a conspiracy the defense says never included the man at the defense table. For what that trade looks like from the cooperator's side of the table — a decade on — see the Anjuan Carter file.

Days 3–4: the "Redman" video — and the first cooperator takes the stand

Wednesday gave the jury the two kinds of evidence this whole trial will be made of: art the government reads as intent, and an insider testifying under a plea deal.

Before the video came the texts. FBI Special Agent Jarron Farmby walked jurors through Banks's messages with close associate Jason Smith in the days after King Von's November 2020 killing: Durk writing that he felt "dead inside" — and then, after being sent a video of a rapper mocking Von's death, "Just wait on the get back." Other messages within a day of the killing, per the exhibits: he would go "all out" for Von, couldn't let it "slide," and "Him dying turning me [into] a different animal." The government's bookend came from August 2022: after Smith sent Banks a news screenshot of Saviay'a Robinson's killing and a clip of Quando Rondo's reaction, Banks didn't reply — and changed his phone number within 48 hours. Steel objected that the gang-ties framing went "well beyond" what the trial should cover; the defense reads the same texts as grief and bravado, not orders.

Then the video. Jurors were shown an unreleased music video for a track called "Redman," filmed in January 2021 — two months after King Von's death. In it, Banks — then wearing his signature blond dreadlocks — appears as himself, reading news coverage of Von's killing, then chasing and shooting an actor prosecutors say portrayed Quando Rondo. The government cited the video as an overt act in the indictment itself: not a song, in the state's telling, but a rehearsal of the revenge to come. Defense attorney Brian Steel, cross-examining FBI Special Agent Jarron Farmby, gave the answer the defense will repeat to the verdict: "It was an expression of art that never got released" — the creative speech of a "grief-stricken" poet, not a plan. After prosecutors already backed away from Durk's lyrics once (the cited verse predated the shooting), the fight over whether a fictional shooting can prove a real one is now squarely in front of the jury.

Then the government called its first cooperator. Kacey "OTF Jam" Hester took the stand and told jurors Durk was a participant in the plot to kill Rondo. Hester's history with Banks goes back to 2007 — both were teenagers in the Black Disciples, and the friendship held through Hester's 12-year prison sentence, with Durk calling him regularly and depositing $50 to $1,000 at a time into his prison account, and later paying his lawyer.

His account of August 2022, continued into Thursday, gave the trial its operational spine. The intelligence, Hester testified, came from Quando Rondo's own marijuana supplier, who disclosed that the rapper would be buying weed during his Los Angeles visit — the tip the ambush was built around. Hester described flying to San Diego with an associate and waiting at a Hooters, where a man he knew as "Boonie" allegedly called in the plan — while Durk, on a separate phone, could be heard speaking somewhere in the background. On August 18, the crew waited to ambush Rondo outside his hotel — and aborted because of heavy police activity. The next day, August 19, came the Beverly Center gas station: Rondo escaped; his cousin Saviay'a Robinson did not.

That background-voice detail cuts both ways, and both sides know it: the state hears Durk present on the planning call; the defense will ask how a man Hester never heard give an order can be the plot's author. The counterattack was built before cross even began — Steel drew out through an investigator that Hester had been interviewed roughly 30 times, with only three sessions recorded — and the defense's throughline for every cooperator is the same: men testifying under agreements with the government, with every incentive to move responsibility off themselves and onto the famous name at the defense table.

The cross-examination: Steel vs. OTF Jam

The credibility fight arrived Thursday and ran through Friday, August 28 — and it was everything the Young Thug trial made Brian Steel famous for. Across two days, Steel worked to reframe the government's first cooperator as "dangerous" and a "coward," walking the jury through Hester's criminal history and, more dangerously for the state, through his own prior words. Jurors heard clips from Hester's first recorded interview with federal investigators — a five-hour session — in which he never mentioned discussing Quando Rondo with Durk before the August 2022 Los Angeles trip, and never mentioned a Georgia meeting that has since become part of his account. Steel's refrain: the story has changed "dramatically" — and when he pressed Hester on whether anything beyond his word connected Durk to the plot, Hester repeatedly agreed that, on point after point, it was only his word. The defense also confronted him with jail calls and with communications from prison with fellow cooperator OTF Vonni — despite a separation order meant to keep the government's witnesses from comparing notes.

Hester didn't fold quietly. When Steel pressed him about how investigators questioned him, he shot back — "It's not on me why they didn't press me. You blame the police. I'm not the police." Asked about being yelled at, he drew courtroom laughter: "You mean yell at me like you did?" He described the Beverly Center shooting itself as "sloppy." And in the exchange the state will happily replay in closing, Hester deflected blame for Vonni's situation with the sentence the entire prosecution rests on: "It's not his fault, it's Durk's fault. Durk put us in this situation."

Friday's session filled in how Hester became a cooperator at all — and gave both sides their best material yet. Hester, who admitted on the stand that he was one of the three gunmen at the gas station (he testified he wanted to back out but believed doing so "will get you killed"), was arrested in May 2023 riding in a car with a gun while on parole, having already served 12 years for attempted murder. In custody, he slipped a note to a guard: "I know about murders. I don't want to talk on camera. I know a lot." By May 18 he had a federal cooperation agreement. Then came the tape Steel wanted jurors to hear: in his first recorded interview (May 24, 2023), Hester said he'd "never" spoken with Durk about a bounty before the trip, and answered a direct bounty question with "I don't know. I really can't say" — before telling the same investigators, two hours later, "It was never a number. But Durk let it be known, 'If you get him, you're gonna be straight.'" On the stand this week he went further still, describing an Atlanta studio meeting where he says Banks personally told a group that whoever killed Rondo would be "straight," with "a million dollars or half a million" discussed. Steel's jail-call exhibits cut the other way on motive: "I'm going to do what I got to do. Whatever it takes to make sure I don't do no time." Hester's explanation — he was reassuring the mothers of his children: "I'm not going to give them the full truth. I'm trying to make them have some hope." Steel also accused him of orchestrating a social media post publishing his own sister's address ("Come see me") in a custody dispute over his son — Hester admitted it: "I was in my feelings" — and suggested he used a go-between to compare notes with Grant in custody, which Hester denied. One more detail for the record: Hester testified that after the shooting, Grant said he set fire to the stolen car to destroy evidence.

Steel finished his cross Friday morning, and prosecutors moved to redirect — rehabilitating their witness before the weekend. The scoreboard after week one: the state has a cooperator who put Durk inside the plot and took his beating without recanting; the defense has a recorded first interview that didn't mention Durk's involvement, a story that grew over 30 tellings, and a witness who conceded the case against the man at the defense table runs through his word. Next up: the remaining cooperators — Kavon "OTF Vonnie" Grant, the former assistant the defense says organized the trip himself (prosecutors say he obtained the ski masks, hotel rooms, guns, and vehicles), and Keith Jones, identified by prosecutors as another of the shooters. The defense's frame for all of it, from Marissa Goldberg's opening, is the line to watch in closings: "This is a murder-for-hire allegation where nobody gets paid."

"Durk told us to" — and the shooter who says he was never paid

Monday, August 31, was the government's biggest swing: both remaining cooperators took the stand. Most of the day belonged to Keith Jones, 35 — one of the three shooters. His account of how the job was pitched: a phone call telling him to get to Los Angeles because "Bro got a million for us." Who was "bro"? "He's the only person around with a million dollars," Jones told jurors — and no, he wouldn't have flown out for free: "I would be risking my freedom for free."

Then came the part that cuts both ways: Jones says he was never paid. He testified that after a concert he asked Banks directly — "Will you still look out for me for the LA shooting?" — and that Banks answered, "I got you, but you shoulda got up close on him," then smiled and made a finger-gun. Later, Jones said, Banks didn't want to be seen handing him money and routed him to an OTF associate called Bonnie Mo, who offered "ten in a couple days" — ten thousand, against the million he says was dangled. "I was surprised, kinda pissed." He says he asked five or six times and never saw a dollar. The state hears a defendant confirming the bounty in his own words; the defense hears its opening line proved — a murder-for-hire where nobody gets paid.

The cross-examination, by Banks attorney Drew Findling and Wilson's attorney Craig Harbaugh, went straight at the origin of Jones's story: in his first law-enforcement interview he denied Banks was involved and named Grant as the operation's leader — the defense's exact theory. Jurors then watched video of a second FBI encounter in which an agent told Jones he was facing life without parole and "would never see his kids again"; later in the video, Jones cries. Why did the story change? "A lot of things changed. I got sleep. I had time to think." Harbaugh: "Does your memory improve over time?" — "No," Jones answered, with a wry smile the jury saw.

At day's end came the witness the verdict may swing on: Kavon Grant, Durk's former personal assistant — the man the defense says masterminded the whole thing. His direct began with thirty minutes of maximum bluntness. Who was involved? Banks, Lindsey, and Wilson. Why try to kill Rondo? "Durk told us to." And the question aimed squarely at the defense's alternative story — would OTF members have flown to California to kill because Grant told them to? "No."

Tuesday, Grant filled in both attempts — the testimony that most closely tracks the government's own court filings. The May 2021 Georgia operation: at a party attended by Durk and roughly 30 others, someone announced Rondo was in the area, and Grant testified Durk instructed him to assemble the operation — two stolen vehicles and guns, work Grant described as routine — before Rondo escaped that gas-station shooting unharmed. The August 2022 Los Angeles plot: Grant said Durk raised Rondo's LA appearance during a private flight, that the crew routed through San Diego at Durk's choice to avoid police attention, and that co-defendant Deandre "DeDe" Wilson told him Durk wanted him involved. One detail that reconciles a loose end in Hester's account: Grant testified Durk and others wanted the getaway Infiniti destroyed — but instead of burning it, he wiped it down, abandoned it for police to tow, and lied to Durk that it had been torched. On Von: "It took a toll. We lost somebody we really loved. It was clear to everyone. Myself as well."

Then Drew Findling's cross turned Grant's own jail calls on him — recordings from December 7, 2024, three days before he signed his cooperation agreement: "I'm going for a job interview. I'm dressing to impress. I'm speaking to impress." And the line the defense will replay in closing: "You wanna go home or you wanna get life? I wanna go home" — followed by plans to do "60 Minutes" when he gets out and "let it do numbers." Findling's frame: a witness auditioning for freedom and a media career. Grant's answers grew combative — repeated memory lapses, demands for exact transcript citations, and, pressed about yawning on the stand, the retort that he'd been up since 3:45 a.m. without a lawyer's hotel to return to. The cross continues.

Why this trial rhymes with the other one

It is a strange coincidence of the calendar: as this trial opened, a Florida jury began deliberating in the Mario Fernandez murder-for-hire trial — a case with the same legal spine (an alleged paymaster, an alleged shooter, money trails standing in for eyewitnesses) and the same central weakness the defense hammers in both courtrooms: no direct evidence of the order being given. That experiment now has its first result: the Florida jury convicted Fernandez in under four hours — a fully circumstantial murder-for-hire case, accepted whole, without a single cooperating witness. Durk's prosecutors have something Florida's didn't — three insiders testifying under plea deals — and his defense will argue that's exactly the problem with the government's case. Murder-for-hire cases are conspiracy cases, and conspiracy cases are proved with cooperators, phones, and money — or not at all.

What happens next

The schedule has accelerated. Prosecutors told the judge Friday the government's case could conclude within days, and by Monday all three cooperators had taken the stand — Grant's testimony resumes Tuesday, with his cross-examination the trial's remaining centerpiece. Courtroom observers now expect the trial to wrap by the end of this week or just after Labor Day weekend, putting a verdict realistically in early-to-mid September 2026 rather than late in the month. If convicted on all counts, Banks faces mandatory life without parole; there is no parole in the federal system. We track this trial's key dates alongside every major case on our court dates tracker, and this page updates as the trial develops and when the verdict comes in.

Why this case file matters

Saviay'a Robinson was 24, and he was not the target. His death sits inside a chain of retaliation that has now consumed two rappers' circles, produced a federal RICO-adjacent prosecution, and put one of the most commercially successful artists of his generation on trial for his life — in a courtroom the public cannot see into. Whatever the verdict, this trial will shape how federal prosecutors build cases against artists and their labels — from cooperator testimony to the use of lyrics — for years.

Case status as of this writing: Durk Banks, David Lindsey, and Deondre Wilson have pleaded not guilty to all charges and are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty; trial is underway in the Central District of California. Kavon Grant, Keith Jones, and Kacey Hester have entered guilty pleas in connection with the case. This article is based on the indictment, court proceedings, and contemporaneous reporting by Billboard, Forbes, KTLA, theGrio, and others. Featured image: AI illustration of a downtown Los Angeles street at dusk created for this article; it does not depict real persons or the actual courthouse.