Federal prosecutors offered more details in a legal filing as to why they are opposed to Lil Durk being granted bail.
In the 13-page document filed Wednesday, Nov. 4, prosecutors said the rapper has continued to violate rules at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles and they noted he was previously denied bond multiple times.
They accused the rapper, whose legal name is Durk Banks, of repeatedly breaking jail rules by using other inmates’ phone access, making hundreds of calls with a contraband phone, and making prohibited three-way calls.
“Since defendant was ordered detained in this case, he has shown a distain for and unwillingness to abide by even the simplest of conditions imposed upon him,” prosecutors wrote in the document.
It was filed on the same day prosecutors argued in court that the rapper should not be granted bail.
Urban Hollywood 411 was in the courtroom as Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Weiner alleged Banks hid a contraband mobile device in a “body cavity.”
Weiner slammed Banks over and over. The prosecutor said the Grammy-winning rapper has a problem with authority and should remain behind bars because he is a flight risk.
“It is just too risky to release him,” Weiner told U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald.
The prosecutor warned Banks might flee to a country that has no extradition agreement with the U.S. if given bail before his second case goes to trial next summer.
Defense attorneys Drew Findling and Brian Steel pushed back, saying Banks wants to be there for his family and they described him as a hero in his hometown of Chicago.
They also alleged Banks is being “targeted” by jail guards at the MDC.
Steel told the judge the rapper has been subjected to body cavity searches and said guards regularly go through Banks’ belongings.
The rapper is currently in solitary confinement after a dispute with guards over random searches of his cell.
They “searched his cell two times in 24 or 48 hours,” Steel said.
“MDC is horrible,” he added.
Attorney Christy O’Connor said the defense is offering a “huge and all encompassing bond package,” including Banks’ mother’s home and his future music royalties as collateral.
While Findling pointed to Banks’ ties to Chicago and letters of support from people including rappers Jay-Z and J. Cole.
Although prosecutors suggested in their filing that the letters were a stunt orchestrated by Banks.
“As he did at trial, in his brief to support release on bond, defendant has trotted out several celebrities in his support. This familiar playbook to apply public pressure to these proceedings, in search of preferential treatment, should be rejected out of hand by this Court,” the filing said.
Prosecutors also accused Banks’ team of paying protesters “to dazzle and distract members of the public” outside the courthouse during his first trial.
“As the Court is aware, there was a groundswell of what appeared to be ‘Free Durk’ support outside of the courthouse the day of closing arguments. But
in response to an online whistleblower, the government learned that the ‘Free Durk’ ‘protesters’ who surrounded the First Street Courthouse’s entrances and exits during trial were, in fact, paid protestors, recruited using ‘casting calls,'” the filing said.
As previously reported, Judge Fitzgerald did not immediately rule on the bail request at Wednesday’s hearing. Nor did he indicate when a decision might be handed down.
Banks has been in federal custody since his October 2024 arrest.
He was acquitted on all counts in his murder-for-hire trial on Sept. 11, but remains jailed awaiting a separate trial on charges involving alleged violent crimes in aid of racketeering, known as VICAR.
He has pleaded not guilty to the remaining charges. His next trial is scheduled for August 2027.
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