CHICAGO — Lil Durk, an award-winning Chicago rapper accused of organizing a murder-for-hire plot targeting a rival artist, has pleaded not guilty, according to a report.
The Chicago Tribune reported that the 32-year-old rapper, whose real name is Durk Devontay Banks, pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges during his arraignment in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Banks is currently facing a handful of charges that stem from his alleged role in a plot to kill Georgia-based rapper Quando Rondo, whose real name is Tyquian Terrel Bowman, over his suspected involvement in the 2020 murder of Chicago rapper King Von, whose real name is Dayvon Daquan Bennett, in Atlanta.
The charges against Banks include one count of conspiracy, one count of use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death, and one count of using, carrying, and discharging firearms and a machine gun and possession of such firearms in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death.
Banks was arrested in Miami on Oct. 24, as he allegedly attempted to board an international flight.
A superseding federal grand jury indictment announced by the Justice Department last week named Banks as the lead defendant to a previous indictment, which charged 28-year-old Kavon London Grant, 33-year-old Deandre Dontrell Wilson, 33-year-old Keith Jones, 33-year-old David Brian Lindsey, and 36-year-old Asa Houston in connection with the plot.
Prosecutors said Banks had allegedly put out a bounty on Bowman and paid the five defendants, who all have ties to the hip-hop group “Only the Family” (OTF), to carry out the murder in exchange for money and music opportunities.
The indictment alleged that OTF not only produced and sold hip hop music from Chicago artists but also acted as “an association-in-fact of individuals who engaged in violence, including murder and assault, at Banks’ direction and to maintain their status in OTF.”
Prosecutors said members of the group learned Bowman was staying at a hotel in Los Angeles in August of 2022 and bank and flight records allegedly showed that an OTF member and associate of Banks coordinated and paid for the five co-conspirators to travel to California from Chicago the day before the murder. The hitmen then allegedly used money from Banks and OTF-related finances to carry out the hit.
Photos provided by the U.S. District Court show a group of people allegedly carrying out a murder-for-hire plot outside of a gas station in Los Angeles in 2022. 
Photos provided by the U.S. District Court show a group of people allegedly carrying out a murder-for-hire plot outside of a gas station in Los Angeles in 2022.
On the same day the hitmen allegedly traveled to California, prosecutors said Banks and Grant also traveled to Los Angeles in a private jet. After arriving, Grant allegedly bought the hitmen ski masks and purchased a hotel room for the other co-conspirators’ using a credit card in Banks’ name.
Once in Los Angeles, the hitmen allegedly tracked and stalked Bowman as he, his sister and his cousin, 24-year-old Saviay’a Robinson, drove around in a black Cadillac Escalade.
After Bowman stopped at a gas station, prosecutors said Houston allegedly drove to an alley behind the gas station before letting the hitmen out to carry out the shooting.
Bowman and his sister were not injured in the shooting but Robinson was killed.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Banks was taken to California on Wednesday, where he remains in federal custody. Prosecutors also asked that he remain in custody pending trial, arguing that he is a flight risk and a danger to the community.
The five other individuals named in the indictment are currently in federal custody in Illinois.
If convicted, all six individuals could face a maximum sentence of life in federal prison.
