With Rihanna and two toddlers looking on from the audience, a prosecutor at the Los Angeles trial of A$AP Rocky told jurors during his closing argument Thursday that they have “one critical question” to answer.
“Was it a real gun or was it a fake gun?” Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec said. “Nothing else is in dispute.”
The prosecutor said the hip-hop star fired at a former friend on a Hollywood street in 2021 and argued that Rocky was simply and undeniably guilty of two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
The defense, whose closing argument began Thursday afternoon, says the gun was a prop that fires only blanks and that Rocky took it from a music video set for security.
Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said the accuser, who is the key witness, is “an angry pathological liar” who “committed perjury again and again and again and again.”
Rocky, the Grammy-nominated music star, fashion mogul and actor whose legal name is Rakim Athelaston Mayers, is the longtime partner of the singing superstar Rihanna, who has attended the trial sporadically.
For the first time, she brought the two sons they have together — 2-year-old RZA Athelston Mayers and 1-year-old Riot Rose Mayers — entering the courtroom quietly but dramatically a few minutes into the prosecutor’s presentation.
The boys, wearing suits, could be heard cooing as a prosecutor talked. Rihanna held one on her lap and tried to keep him quiet with a toy. During a break, Rocky walked down the hall, past jurors, holding the younger boy. Rihanna returned to court after the lunch break without the children.
Jurors will likely begin deliberating on Friday. Rocky could get up to 24 years in prison if convicted.
The jurors are not supposed to be aware of the possible sentence. But during testimony, Rocky’s tour manager, Lou Levin, said, “I read that he was facing 24 years,” after a prosecutor hounded him about whether he wanted to see his friend and sometime boss convicted.
The judge told the jury to disregard the statement. In his closing, Przelomiec said it was intentional.
“It’s interesting that Lou blurts that out when he’s not asked a question about that,” he said. “That’s clear evidence that Lou is trying to get out information to you that he thinks is prejudicial.”