Lil Durk Codefendants Move to Sever Trials After New Racketeering Counts

Broward Sheriff’s Office Lil Durk mugshot

The fallout from the federal indictment against Lil Durk widened this month as two of his codefendants formally asked to be tried apart from the rapper. On June 10, attorneys for DeAndre Wilson and David Lindsey filed a motion seeking severance from Durk’s upcoming trial, pointing to newly added racketeering allegations they say have nothing to do with their clients.

The motion ties directly to a recent expansion of charges in the case. Prosecutors added a third superseding indictment last month that folded in allegations tied to two shootings in Georgia in 2019 and 2021 and a 2022 Chicago murder alongside the 2022 killing of Quando Rondo’s cousin — the slaying for which five men are accused of acting at Durk’s behest. Wilson and Lindsey’s lawyers argue those fresh claims would unfairly tar jurors and make individual guilt harder to parse.

“A jury asked to weigh the movants’ roles against three shootings in two other states, none charged to their own conduct, cannot realistically be expected to decide each defendant’s guilt as an individual rather than by reference to the enterprise the Government has built around them.”

A federal hearing to address the severance motion has been set for July 1. Separately, a third defendant, Asa Houston, has also moved to sever so his recently hired defense team can get time to review the sprawling discovery.

Last month’s third superseding indictment layered on charges including murder in aid of racketeering and conspiracy to commit stalking, a prosecutorial shift that has reshaped defense strategy. Lil Durk’s lawyers pushed back publicly, distributing a forceful statement on social media that dismissed the new allegations as tactical maneuvering by prosecutors.

“This indictment is lipstick on a pig,” the statement reads. “For nearly two years now, federal prosecutors have desperately tried to fend off challenges to a very weak case. Now, just two months before trial– a trial that Durk Banks has demanded at every turn– they pull this pathetic pivot, recycling old accusations into a scrambling prosecutor’s back-up plan: allege racketeering and as many unrelated false claims as possible. This is not a sign of strength. It’s an acknowledgment of weakness. The fact remains: Durk Banks is innocent, no matter how many indictments they want to throw at him.”

Those procedural fights are moving on a tight calendar: the Lil Durk trial is currently scheduled to begin on Aug. 20. The requests to sever, and the government’s decision to fold broader racketeering counts into the case, set up a summer of contested pretrial litigation that could determine whether jurors ever hear a unified narrative or multiple, separate stories about the same set of events.

Elsewhere, the developments underscore how RICO-style framing in high-profile hip-hop prosecutions can expand the scope of evidence and the roster of alleged conduct — and how defense teams are responding by trying to isolate clients from that wider web.