How a One Page Report Upended the ASAP Rocky Case

Two days into ASAP Rocky’s trial and there’s already been enough conflict and drama to last for weeks. The superstar is charged with two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm for allegedly shooting his former friend ASAP Relli back in 2021. He is potentially facing up to 24 years in prison if convicted. The issues in the courtroom so far, though, have nothing to do with Rocky’s star status, the last-minute plea deal he turned down, or whether his “common-law wife” Rihanna will be attending.

Instead, most of the drama so far is centered around, of all seemingly innocuous things, a one-page report.

What does the report say

On day one, which occurred on Friday, January 24th, Deputy District Attorney John Lewin revealed that he had received a ballistics report from the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division just the day before. The report was dated from January of last year, but they had never seen it.

“[Robbery-Homicide] believed they had turned it over, and they didn’t,” Lewin told Judge Mark Arnold.

Lewin placed an urgent request for additional scientific information related to the report, and received 28 pages of it early Friday morning. The report was immediately turned over to Rocky’s team, as was the subsequent backup. The reason this is a big deal is because of what the report shows, and how it relates to Rocky’s defense.

There is video of the confrontation with Relli that shows Rocky brandishing what appears to be a firearm. (The rapper’s defense team is claiming it was a prop gun). Police, on searching the scene, didn’t discover any shell casings. However, Relli presented two shell casings to the police several days later. He said he found them at the scene when he returned just an hour after the incident.

It was those casings that were tested in the newly-found report. That report said, per Lewin, that “the two casings are consistent with having been fired from certain 9 mm handguns,” including a Glock 43.

“A Glock 43 is more likely to have put the marks on the casings than many other firearms,” the prosecutor summarized.

The reason this is relevant is that when Rocky’s home was raided in April, 2022, a 9 mm magazine, loaded with six bullets, was found. (Rocky’s tour manager Lou Levin is reportedly set to testify that the magazine belonged to him).

The last-minute discovery of potentially crucial evidence made Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina extremely emotional. He asked for the report to be suppressed.

He also demanded an entirely new jury. Tacopina said that if he had known about the report while choosing jurors, it may have affected “whether we would have kept or not kept a few jurors, one in particular.” This appeared to be a reference to one female juror who is a firearms instructor.

“There’s no way to proceed in this case… I’ve never seen anything like this,” the lawyer said to Judge Arnold. “I’m trying to keep my composure, Your Honor. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this upset in a courtroom in my whole career.”

While the timing of the report was last-minute enough to draw plenty of attention, Judge Arnold believed the state’s account that Robbery-Homicide mistakenly believed they had already sent it.

So what happens with the ASAP Rocky trial now?

The rough outlines of each side’s argument are very clear. As mentioned, Rocky is claiming that the gun he’s seen with is a prop, an argument that will be backed up with testimony from ASAP Twelvyy. Twelvyy, along with tour manager Lou Levin, are set to say that the Testing rapper frequently carried a prop gun because, per Tacopina, “he was the victim of prior violence [and] stalker home invasions.”

Alongside that, the main thrust of Rocky’s defense, as seen in Friday’s opening argument, is that ASAP Relli wanted money from Rocky.

"It’s nothing more than a money grab—a clear attempt at extortion by Relli," Tacopina said. He pointed out that Relli has sued Rocky in civil court over the incident, asking for $30 million in damages.

Rocky’s tale of the confrontation is that Relli was attacking ASAP Illz, so Rocky fired his prop gun several times in self-defense.

Prosecutors tell a different story: that Relli went to a meetup with Rocky expecting to patch up their differences, but that an argument led to Rocky pulling out a gun and shooting him.

That side’s opening statement was made by Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec.

"This is not a complicated case. The evidence will show the events in this case were captured on surveillance video," he said.

What about the plea deal ASAP Rocky turned down?

On the day jury selection began, Rocky turned down a plea deal from prosecutors. In return for pleading guilty to one of his two counts, Rocky was offered 180 days in jail, a seven-year suspended sentence, three years of probation, and 500 hours of community service.

TMZ reported that, according to a “source with direct knowledge,” the rapper’s reasoning behind turning down the plea deal was that it would cost him all of his endorsements and “he would not be able to tour and his career would be over. They would have him under their thumb for over 8 years.”

Tacopina’s only comment was that his client turned the deal down “because he has always maintained his innocence.”

While there is no evidence beyond the anonymous source that Rocky was concerned with the career ramifications of a plea, the reasoning does make sense.

Back in November, Erin Haney, chief policy officer at REFORM Alliance, spoke to Complex about the potential career drawbacks of Young Thug’s plea in his racketeering case. She explained that probation conditions are often “vague and broad and subjective.”

“They often mean different things for different defendants,” she continued, tying it to the frequent traveling involved in being a professional musician like Thug or Rocky.

“One of the general conditions for people is that they cannot usually leave even the county, but definitely the state, without explicit permission from their supervision officer.”