Lil Durk’s defense attorney Brian Steel spent part of Tuesday’s session in federal court in Los Angeles pressing a detective on how the government’s key cooperating witnesses were interviewed — and how rarely those conversations were recorded.
During cross-examination of LAPD Detective Warner Carias, Steel established that Kacey “OTF Jam” Hester had been interviewed 30 times, with only three of those sessions recorded. Keith Jones, also known as Flacka, had five interviews in which Carias was present, with just one recorded. Kavon “OTF Vonnie” Grant had 10 interviews with Carias present and none of them recorded.
Carias told the jury that recording interviews is the most accurate method and that he prefers to record his own sessions. When asked why so many of the conversations with these three witnesses went unrecorded, he attributed the practice to U.S. Attorney procedure. Steel also asked whether cooperators facing the possibility of life sentences might have reason to shift blame onto others. Carias acknowledged that was possible.
The three men have pleaded guilty and are expected to testify for the prosecution against Lil Durk (whose legal name is Durk Banks), Deandre Wilson and David Brian Lindsey. Prosecutors allege that a 2022 shooting near the Beverly Center that killed Saviay’a “Lul Pab” Robinson, the cousin of rapper Quando Rondo, was a botched murder-for-hire plot ordered in retaliation for the 2020 killing of King Von. Durk has pleaded not guilty and faces a potential life sentence if convicted.
Steel, who previously represented Young Thug in the lengthy YSL racketeering trial in Atlanta, has made the reliability of the investigation and the incentives of cooperating witnesses central themes of the defense. The numbers he put on the record Tuesday — dozens of interviews with only a handful captured on tape — give the jury a concrete point of comparison as the case continues and the cooperators prepare to take the stand.
