Rappers on Trial: RICO Cases, Rap Lyrics, and Verdicts

Hip-hop’s biggest names have spent the past two years cycling through federal courtrooms and state trials on charges ranging from sex trafficking and racketeering to murder-for-hire and assault. The current slate of rappers on trial includes Sean “Diddy” Combs, Lil Durk, YNW Melly, and the remaining defendants from the Young Slime Life RICO case, alongside recently resolved prosecutions of A$AP Rocky, Ca$h Out, and Tory Lanez. The outcomes have been uneven: some convictions carry life sentences, others ended in acquittals, and several cases are still awaiting trial or retrial into 2027.

Sean “Diddy” Combs

Sean Combs was convicted on July 2, 2025, of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution under the Mann Act. The federal jury in the Southern District of New York acquitted him of the two charges that carried the heaviest exposure: racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking.¹

The case began with a September 2024 indictment and expanded in April 2025, when a superseding indictment stretched the alleged racketeering conspiracy from 2004 through 2024.² Prosecutors alleged Combs used Bad Boy Entertainment staff to arrange travel, hotels, drugs, and male escorts for sexual performances they called “Freak Offs,” and used recordings of those encounters to keep victims silent.³

Trial opened in May 2025 before U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian. Cassie Ventura, Combs’s former long-term partner, testified for four days about what she described as “control, violence and blackmail,” and said she felt compelled to participate in the sexual events. “I’d give that money back if I never had to do freak offs,” she told jurors, referring to a $20 million civil settlement she received from Combs in 2023.⁴ More than 30 witnesses testified over seven weeks. The defense case lasted roughly 20 minutes and consisted of a stipulation and text messages; Combs did not testify.⁵

Judge Subramanian denied bail pending sentencing, citing Combs’s history of violence. Sentencing was scheduled for October 3, 2025.⁵

Lil Durk

Lil Durk (Durk Banks) is scheduled to stand trial on August 20, 2026, before Judge Michael Fitzgerald on federal charges tied to the August 2022 fatal shooting of Saviay’a Robinson in Los Angeles. Prosecutors allege Banks orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot aimed at rival rapper Quando Rondo (Tyquian Bowman) as retaliation for the 2020 killing of King Von. Robinson, an associate of Bowman’s, was killed instead.⁶

A June 2026 superseding indictment broadened the case considerably. The new counts include murder in aid of racketeering and conspiracy to commit stalking, treating Banks’s crew, Only the Family, as a criminal enterprise. The indictment also incorporates a January 2022 Chicago homicide, in which Banks allegedly delivered $1 million in cash to a music studio as a reward for killing a rival, a 2019 Atlanta shooting in which prosecutors allege Banks personally wounded someone in a dispute over a stolen car, and a 2021 attempted murder of Quando Rondo near a Georgia gas station.⁷⁸

Banks has pleaded not guilty. His defense team, led by Drew Findling, Marissa Goldberg, Brian Steel, and Christy O’Connor, called the expanded indictment “lipstick on a pig” and a “pathetic pivot.”⁹ He has been held in solitary confinement, in a cell 23 hours a day, after allegedly being found with an Apple Watch in August 2025.⁶ Prosecutors have secured a ruling allowing them to introduce lyrics from his songs “Who Want Smoke??” and “Ahhh Ha” as evidence that he ordered violence.

Young Thug and the YSL Case

Young Thug (Jeffery Lamar Williams) resolved his Fulton County RICO case on October 31, 2024, with a non-negotiated “blind” plea after more than two years in custody. He pleaded guilty to one gang charge, three drug charges, and two gun charges, and no contest to racketeering conspiracy and an additional gang charge. Judge Paige Reese Whitaker sentenced him to 40 years, with the first five commuted to time served, followed by 15 years of probation. A probation violation would trigger an additional 20 years.¹⁰

His probation terms are unusually restrictive. Williams had to leave the Atlanta metropolitan area within 48 hours of release and must stay away for 10 years, with exceptions for weddings, funerals, and family illness. He is required to return to Atlanta four times a year to give anti-gang and anti-violence presentations at schools or community organizations, is barred from associating with gang members or using gang terminology and hand signs, and must submit to random drug testing.¹⁰

In April 2025, prosecutors moved to revoke his probation after he retweeted a blogger’s post identifying a gang investigator who had testified. Judge Whitaker declined to revoke but advised Williams to “exercise restraint regarding certain topics.”¹¹

Co-defendants ended in a mix. On December 3, 2024, Deamonte Kendrick (Yak Gotti) was found not guilty on all charges, including murder. Shannon Stillwell was acquitted of racketeering, murder, and gang charges but convicted of one count of gun possession and sentenced to 10 years with credit for time served and probation.¹² Damekion Garlington entered an Alford plea and received 20 years with five served. Nine defendants, including the rapper Gunna, had taken plea deals before the trial began.¹³

A$AP Rocky

A$AP Rocky (Rakim Mayers) was acquitted on February 18, 2025, of two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. The charges came from a 2021 altercation in Hollywood with Terell Ephron, a former friend and bandmate known as A$AP Relli.¹⁴

The trial at Los Angeles Superior Court ran about three weeks, with the jury deliberating for nearly three hours. Mayers faced up to 24 years if convicted on both counts, and prosecutors had sought eight. Defense attorney Joe Tacopina argued Mayers fired a prop gun or starter pistol, which was never recovered, and that Ephron was motivated by plans to pursue a civil lawsuit. Prosecutors argued it was a real handgun that grazed Ephron’s knuckles.¹⁵¹⁶ After the verdict, Mayers told the jury, “Thank y’all for saving my life.”

Ca$h Out

Atlanta rapper Ca$h Out (John Michael Gibson) was convicted on July 21, 2025, in Fulton County of racketeering, rape, pimping, aggravated sodomy, and two counts of sex trafficking after a seven-week trial. He was acquitted of a third sex trafficking count, sexual servitude, aggravated assault, and maintaining a place of prostitution. He received a life sentence for the rape conviction plus an additional 70 years for the other offenses, running concurrently.¹⁷

Two family members were tried alongside him. His cousin, Tyrone Taylor, was convicted of racketeering, rape, aggravated sodomy, and multiple counts of trafficking, assault, false imprisonment, and drug possession, and was sentenced to life plus 60 years. His mother, Linda Smith, was convicted of trafficking and racketeering and sentenced to 20 years. All three must register as sex offenders. Prosecutors said the defendants coerced women into sex work over a period of seven years.¹⁸

YNW Melly

YNW Melly (Jamell Maurice Demons) is awaiting retrial on first-degree murder charges for the October 2018 shooting deaths of Anthony Williams (YNW Sakchaser) and Christopher Thomas Jr. (YNW Juvy). His first trial, in July 2023, ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict. Prosecutors have filed notice of intent to seek the death penalty.¹⁹

The retrial has been pushed to January 2027 after Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeals granted a stay to consider a motion filed by prosecutors.²⁰ In January 2026, prosecutors dismissed four ancillary charges, including witness tampering, directing gang activities, criminal solicitation to commit murder, and conspiracy to tamper with a witness.¹⁹ His co-defendant, Cortlen Henry (YNW Bortlen), pleaded no contest to accessory charges in September 2025 and received 10 years.

Demons is seeking bond. At an April 30, 2026 hearing, defense attorneys argued he has suffered psychological effects from solitary confinement, while prosecutors said he has access to an open dorm and recreational facilities. The judge deferred ruling.²¹

Tory Lanez

Tory Lanez (Daystar Peterson), convicted in 2023 of three gun-related charges for shooting Megan Thee Stallion (Megan Pete) during a 2020 incident and sentenced to 10 years, lost his appeal in November 2025. A three-justice panel of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled he was not the victim of a miscarriage of justice. The panel identified one error on jury instructions tied to a concealed-firearm charge but deemed it “harmless.” The same court had rejected two habeas petitions in August 2025.²²²³

In May 2025, Lanez was stabbed 14 times at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, with wounds to his back, torso, head, and face, and both lungs collapsed. The suspected attacker is Santino Casio, a 42-year-old inmate serving a life sentence for murder with prior in-prison convictions for assault and weapons possession. Lanez was listed in fair condition and breathing on his own within days.²⁴

The Murder of Julio Foolio

Four men were convicted of first-degree murder for the June 2024 ambush killing of Jacksonville rapper Julio Foolio (Charles Jones), who was shot in a Tampa hotel parking lot on his 26th birthday. Isaiah Chance, Sean Gathright, Rashad Murphy, and Davion Murphy were convicted in May 2026. On June 22, 2026, Hillsborough County Judge Michelle Sisco sentenced all four to life without parole.²⁵ Prosecutors said the killing was a coordinated attack driven by gang rivalry, and Judge Sisco described the crime as driven by “turf warfare and drill rap videos.”²⁶

A fifth defendant, Alicia Andrews, was convicted of manslaughter in October 2025 for acting as a lookout and tracking Foolio’s location, and was sentenced to 15 years. Andrews successfully moved to remove Judge Sisco from her case, alleging the judge “exhibited overt hostility toward the defense.” The replacement judge, Kimberly Fernandez, denied a motion to overturn, saying she “would not have ruled any differently.” Andrews’s attorney has indicated plans to file another appeal.²⁷

RICO and Rap Lyrics as Evidence

Two legal threads run through many of these prosecutions: the use of racketeering statutes to charge rap collectives as criminal enterprises, and the admission of song lyrics as proof of criminal conduct.

Georgia’s state RICO statute, used against Young Thug and Ca$h Out, is significantly broader than its federal counterpart. Originally designed to target traditional organized crime, it has been applied to hip-hop collectives, schoolteachers in a cheating scandal, and political figures. Critics argue the law’s expansive scope gives prosecutors wide discretion that can disproportionately target racial minorities, and scholars have noted that law enforcement is more likely to classify crimes committed by groups of Black young people as gang-related than similar behavior by white groups.²⁸

Lyrics have surfaced as evidence in several of the cases above. A federal judge ruled that prosecutors in the Lil Durk case can play lyrics from two of his songs to argue he ordered retaliatory violence. Researchers have documented more than 820 instances of creative works used in criminal trials. The Restoring Artistic Protection (RAP) Act was reintroduced in Congress in July 2025 with 20 cosponsors and backing from the Recording Academy, SAG-AFTRA, and Universal Music Group. It would create a presumption in the Federal Rules of Evidence limiting the admissibility of an artist’s creative expression against them in criminal and civil cases.²⁹

New York has moved further. Senate Bill S464, sponsored by Brad Hoylman-Sigal, passed the state senate in March 2025 and would bar the use of a defendant’s creative expression as evidence unless the prosecution proves by clear and convincing evidence that it has a “literal, factual nexus” to the alleged crime. The bill was delivered to the Assembly and remained on the floor calendar.³⁰ The U.S. Supreme Court declined in 2019 to hear a case challenging the admissibility of rap lyrics, despite advocacy from artists including Chance the Rapper, Meek Mill, and Killer Mike.³¹

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NPR. Sean Combs Faces New Trafficking Charges
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U.S. Department of Justice. Sean Combs Charged in Manhattan Federal Court
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Los Angeles Times. Young Thug Probation Revocation Denied
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NBC News. Co-Defendants of Young Thug Acquitted
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Fox 5 Atlanta. YSL Trial Murder Convictions, Plea Deals
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The New York Times. A$AP Rocky Found Not Guilty
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The Guardian. A$AP Rocky Gun Assault Trial
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NBC News. A$AP Rocky Shooting Trial Verdict
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Fox 5 Atlanta. Rapper Ca$h Out, Cousin Get Life
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Variety. Rapper Cash Out Sentenced to Life
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TC Palm. YNW Melly Murder Trial Update
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NBC Miami. YNW Melly Retrial Pushed to 2027
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TC Palm. YNW Melly Bond Ruling Deferred
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BBC. Tory Lanez Appeal Rejected
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Legal Affairs and Trials. Appellate Court Upholds Tory Lanez’s Conviction
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Fox LA. Tory Lanez Prison Attack
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Fox 13 News. Julio Foolio Murder: Four Sentenced to Life
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MySunCoast. Jury Recommends Life for Four Defendants
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Court TV. Alicia Andrews Sentenced
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Boston University Law Review. RICO and Structural Legitimacy Messaging
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U.S. House of Representatives. RAP Act Reintroduced
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New York State Senate. Senate Bill S464
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NPR. Young Thug Charged Under RICO