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ASAP Rocky lawyer says gun in alleged Hollywood shooting was a prop – Jobsmaa.com

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ASAP Rocky, who allegedly shot a founding member of the New York rap crew that helped launch his career, was carrying only a “prop gun” from a music video shoot that could not fire real bullets, his defense attorney said Friday.

During opening arguments in the rap star's Los Angeles assault trial, defense attorney Joe Tacobina painted Rocky — whose real name is Rakim Meyers — as the victim rather than the aggressor in an assault case who could face up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors allege Mayors Terrell Ebron fatally shot Asaph Reilly on a Hollywood street corner on Nov. 6, 2021 after a heated argument. The two are longtime friends and members of the Harlem rap crew ASAP — which stands for “Always Striving and “Prosper” — but have grown apart in recent years.

Much of the prosecution's case was aired Last year during the initial investigation, The public got a first look at Tacobina's defense strategy this week. For an hour Friday afternoon, Tacobina attacked Efron's credibility, arguing that he only reported Mayors to police to raise a civil case and that he knew Mayors was carrying a fake weapon.

Dacopina pointed to the fact that LAPD officers who responded to 911 calls in the area that night found “no evidence” of a shooting, and questioned how Ebron — not the police — was able to recover two shell casings when he returned to the scene hours later. .

“What you learn is that Reilly returned to the scene an hour later and he was trying to produce evidence,” Tacobina said. “It's some offensive stuff.”

But prosecutors made a revelation just before Friday's opening that could fuel that approach.

Sub-District. Atty. John Levin said prosecutors belatedly obtained “ballistic evidence” from the Los Angeles Police Department's robbery-homicide unit ahead of the trial. According to Levin, analysis confirmed that the shell casings recovered at the shooting scene were mostly fired from a 9 mm handgun. The “somewhat unique” markings could match a “subset” of Glock guns, Levin said.

Although police never found the weapon used in the shooting, the evidence may undermine Tacobina's “prop gun” defense because such a device is not 9mm rounds.

Tacobina was outraged by the eleventh-hour revelation and asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold to delay the opening or restart jury selection in light of the new information. Arnold denied both requests, saying the evidence was not consistent with a “smoking gun,” such as an eyewitness claiming Meyers fired the shots.

“This is not right. It’s not fair to him,” Tacobina said, pointing to the mayors.

An LAPD spokeswoman could not immediately explain why there was such a delay in a case that police handed over to prosecutors in 2022.

Tacobina said the case was about Ebron's “jealousy, lies and greed,” after the accuser retained a civil attorney and did not report the shooting to the LAPD until two days later. He also pointed to text messages Efron sent from mayors saying he was “going to get money to … get this.”

“This case is about money … Relli's attempt to extort money so he can finance his lavish lifestyle,” Tacobina said.

Tacobina said it was “amazing” that Efron was able to recover the shell casing after seven LAPD officers searched and found none. He repeatedly called the prosecution's chief witness a “criminal” who knew Meyers was carrying a prop gun.

According to Tacobina, Meyers has a permit to carry a concealed weapon in California, but did not pack an actual gun despite being threatened in the months leading up to the shooting. Tacobina said Mayers took the prop gun from the set of a recent music video shoot, where he was filmed with his longtime partner Rihanna, with whom he has two children.

In his opening statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. The case was not “complicated,” mostly because a pair played surveillance videos that showed Meyers and Efron arguing and wrestling with each other on Argyle Avenue in Hollywood.

Mayers, flanked by two other founding members of the ASAP crew, can be seen in one video pulling a handgun from his waistband. A second clip captures audible pops that sound like gunshots, but neither clip captures the actual shooting.

Birzelomic described Meyers as the aggressor in the incident, pointing to texts he sent Efron hours before the shooting requesting a meeting. The pair have been arguing over text in recent weeks because Efron believes the mayors, wrongly, did not pay for the funeral of a fellow crew member who died of a drug overdose.

Although the injuries Efron suffered were minor — photographs showed small scrapes on both of his knuckles — Brelomic noted that a jury would not need serious injuries to find Meyers guilty of assault. The calls to 911 the night of the incident did not indicate the exact location of the shooting.

Birzelomik also pointed to a search warrant executed at the mayor's Los Angeles home in 2022, where police recovered a 9mm magazine. Tacobina countered that the ammunition in the magazine was a different brand from the Ebron type. There is no forensic evidence linking the mayors to the shell casing.

The case, Tacobina said, rested entirely on Efron's testimony.

“These cases rise or fall on his credibility. The videos you've seen, without his testimony, prove nothing,” Tacobina said. “You have to believe his testimony and the video's version of events for these allegations to be proven.”

Meanwhile, Brezelomik painted a portrait of betrayal where Efron went to meet the mayors.

“In his state of mind, he never believed he was going to be shot. He never believed the defendant was actually going to shoot him,” Birzelomik said. “He would tell you it was a stranger, someone he didn't know, and he would have panicked.”

But as their argument worsened, Efron had a realization, according to Birzelomik, seconds before he was told he had been shot.

“These men are not here to make peace with him,” said the lawyer.

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