Feds Add Racketeering Charge to Lil Durk Murder-For-Hire Case

As trial approaches in Lil Durk ’s murder-for-hire case, federal prosecutors have brought an additional charge that accuses the rapper of racketeering by operating his Only the Family (OTF) label as a violent gang.

Durk is scheduled to go to trial in August for allegedly putting a bounty on rival rapper Quando Rondo in retaliation for the 2020 killing of his close friend and collaborator King Von . Rondo was shot at a Los Angeles gas station in 2022 and survived, but another man who went by Lul Pab was killed in the crossfire.

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The Chicago drill star (Durk Banks) has faced murder-for-hire charges since 2024 over allegations he paid OTF crew members to carry out the killing, accusations he strongly denies. Now, prosecutors have beefed up his indictment with another charge under the federal Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering Activity (VICAR) statute, which broadly criminalizes violent gang activity.

“In or around 2010, defendant Banks formed an organization called Only the Family, or ‘OTF,’ which, among other things, produced and sold the hip hop music of artists primarily from the Chicago, Illinois area,” reads the new indictment, filed Thursday (June 4) and obtained by Billboard . “After the formation of OTF, a subset of OTF members and associates (hereinafter the ‘Banks Gang Enterprise’) engaged in acts and threats of violence at the direction of defendant Banks, including murder and attempted murder.”

This new charge not only exposes Durk to additional criminal liability, but it also clears a potentially easier path for prosecutors to secure a conviction at trial. That’s because even if jurors don’t buy that Durk ordered the Quando Rondo hit, they could convict him of racketeering based on a different alleged violent crime laid out in the case.

In addition to the Quando Rondo incident, Thursday’s indictment accuses Durk of an attempted 2019 murder in Atlanta, for which he was previously arrested but had the charges dropped . Prosecutors also claim he paid $1 million in cash for the murder of another rival gang member in Chicago in 2022.

Durk’s legal team said in a statement to Billboard that the new indictment is “lipstick on a pig” — that is, an attempt to superficially disguise something fundamentally flawed.

“For nearly two years now, federal prosecutors have desperately tried to fend off challenges to a very weak case,” said defense lawyers Drew Findling , Marissa Goldberg , Brian Steel and Christy O’Connor . “Now, just two months before trial — a trial that Durk Banks has demanded at every turn — they pull this pathetic pivot, recycling old accusations into a scrambling prosecutor’s back-up plan: allege racketeering and as many unrelated false claims as possible. This is not a sign of strength. It’s an acknowledgment of weakness. The fact remains: Durk Banks is innocent, no matter how many indictments they want to throw at him.”

Durk’s lawyers have repeatedly criticized the charges against him as overly vague and unethically prosecuted . They’ve also sparred repeatedly with prosecutors over attempts to use the rapper’s lyrics as evidence of crimes, a controversial practice that’s still legal at the federal level despite pending legislation that would ban it.

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Thursday’s indictment brings even more of Durk’s music into the case by citing for the first time an unreleased music video for his 2020 song “Redman.” In this video, prosecutors say Durk is “depicted chasing and shooting an actor who looks substantially similar to” Rondo and viewing online posts about Von’s death.

“Through phone calls, text communications, social media posts and musical lyrics, members and associates of the Banks Gang Enterprise, including defendants Banks… would boast about and celebrate violence committed by members, associates, and affiliates of the Banks Gang Enterprise,” reads the new indictment.

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/pro/lil-durk-murder-for-hire-case-bulked-up/)._