Jurors in A$AP Rocky’s felony assault trial got the case after the prosecutor told them to put aside their personal feelings about the hip-hop star, his wife Rihanna, and their young kids.
The jury—seven women and five men—received the case just before the weekend and will begin deliberations, after the three-day break. They’re deciding on two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, which could result in up to 24 years in prison if Rocky is convicted.
Rihanna was in court as usual for the closing arguments, but this time, she brought their 2-year-old and 1-year-old sons with her. The prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, suggested that their appearance could be an attempt to sway the jury.
“They brought in two adorable children yesterday for closing arguments,” Lewin said. “They haven’t been here any other time. And you have to ask yourselves, why would they bring children that young into something like this?”
He made it clear: “You are not allowed to consider how this might affect Rihanna and his kids. We are all responsible for our own actions.”
Rihanna was seated with Rocky’s mother and sister—without the kids—while she and Rocky left the courtroom together, flanked by security.
Rocky’s facing accusations of firing two shots at a former friend on a Hollywood street corner in 2021. His defense argued that he was just firing blanks from a prop gun he grabbed for security on a music video shoot.
During his closing argument, Rocky’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, painted the accuser, A$AP Relli, as the aggressor and a liar. Tacopina showed the jury text messages from Relli—messages that were deleted later—that showed Relli pushing Rocky to fight him. The prosecution had only shown Rocky’s angry responses, which Tacopina argued painted an incomplete picture.
Tacopina even called out Relli’s combative attitude during his testimony, saying, “Imagine what he’s like in the street,” pointing to how he raised his arm in the confrontation shown in the surveillance footage. Although Rocky’s not visible in that moment, Tacopina argued it was clear that Relli was the first to escalate things.
He told the jury that even if they didn’t believe Rocky’s claim about the prop gun, they could still acquit him if they found he acted in self-defense. No gun was produced as evidence by either side.
In his rebuttal, Lewin said, “If it’s a prop gun, there’s no self-defense.” He told the jury this could be “a five-minute verdict,” stressing that if they decide the gun wasn’t a prop, the case is essentially closed.
Lewin also repeatedly mentioned Rocky’s status, calling him a “big, important man” and claiming that people in his circle had lied about the gun being a prop Rocky had been carrying for months.
At one point, Judge Mark Arnold had to step in and tell Lewin to stop referencing Rocky’s family in his arguments. The judge said he didn’t think it was necessarily improper but told Lewin to avoid bringing up Rihanna or the kids in the courtroom again.
