Yesterday in LA, A$AP Rocky had a hearing that determined he will go forward to arraignment on two charges of assault for firing a gun at A$AP Relli in November of 2021.
In November of 2021, both A$AP Rocky and A$AP Relli were involved in a disagreement outside of The W hotel in Hollywood that led to a shootout. When the case was originally brought to the court in August of 2022, Rocky pled not guilty to the two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and was released on a $550,000 bond.
Superior Court Judge M.L. Villar pushed the case forward yesterday, ruling that prosecutors provided sufficient enough evidence to support the assault charges. Rocky’s arraignment is now set for January 8th, to be followed by the trial. If Rocky is convicted, he could face up to 9 years in prison.
The prosecution presented 2 key pieces of evidence, including a testimony and video surveillance footage from the neighborhood in which the shooting took place. The testimony was from an LAPD detective that claims Rocky fired shots at Relli. The surveillance footage was taken from multiple neighborhood cameras and pieced together.
The videos begin with Rocky getting into a physical altercation outside of a parking garage, but no weapon is distinctly visible. The next clip shows the altercation from another angle, and allegedly follows Rocky as he flees the scene. One of the later clips includes audio in which you can distinctly hear 2 gunshots fired, but no visual of who or where they came from. The gunshots heard on the footage are marked around 10PM on November 6th, 2021, which matches prosecutor records.
During a cross examination of the witness, Rocky’s attorney Joe Tacopina’s questioning led the LAPD detective to admit “nothing definitively” shows Rocky firing a weapon in the surveillance footage provided. Tacopina continued to reveal from the detective that no weapons were recovered from the scene, nor were there any fingerprints on the two bullet casings recovered. These casings were given to the police by Relli two days after the incident allegedly occurred.
A$AP Relli testified that tensions rose between him and his former friend, A$AP Rocky, after Rocky promised to help a deceased A$AP Mob member’s family but never followed through. Allegedly Relli and Rocky agreed to meet at the hotel on November 6th, 2021, where Relli says Rocky showed up with multiple men and pointed a gun at his torso, telling him: “I’ll kill you right now.” Relli’s testimony continued to detail that he was shot 4 times following that altercation, one shot hitting him in the hand, before Rocky fled the scene.
Along with the two charges of assault against Rocky, Relli is also suing Rocky and his lawyer, Tacopina, for defamation. He claims that the pair are making him out to look like a liar through a media campaign.
Tacopina did not seem to be surprised by the outcome of the hearing, saying that “a scintilla of evidence is enough. It’s a probable cause hearing. The trial is going to be very different.” He continued to tell the press that he may allow Rocky to take the stand during trial, saying that “common sense is going to prevail and we’re going to get [Rocky] through this, and he’s going to be vindicated. The evidence we have that they don’t know about is going to be devastating — devastating.”
We will have to wait and see what “devastating” evidence the defense will provide in January, with the next court date being Rocky’s arraignment on January 8th, 2024.
You can check out the surveillance footage provided as evidence on X here.