The Lil Durk murder-for-hire trial is the root of hip-hop's most divisive and discussed debates right now, with everyone from fellow artists to legal experts chiming in. During a recent stream with DJ Akadmiks, defense attorney Bradford Cohen spoke about the case and gave his predictions about the charges and a potential verdict.
Bradford Cohen is a name many folks will recognize, as he's represented hip-hop superstars in various high-profile cases. As caught by DJ Akademiks TV on Instagram, he believes the jury in the Chicago rapper's case will not give him the maximum life sentence if they find him to be guilty.
Ak asked Cohen for his perspective on the different charges (not all of which carry a mandatory life sentence) and potential outcomes. For those unaware, the specific charges against Smurk are the following: conspiracy to commit stalking; stalking resulting in death; conspiracy and use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death; and possession, use, carrying, and discharging of firearms and machine gun in furtherance of, during, and in relation to a violent crime.
"In Durk's situation, I think it's tough for a jury to come back on a lesser [charge], aggravated stalking, and not come back on the rest," Bradford Cohen remarked. "You're really relying on them either believing or not believing the cooperators... So if they don't believe the cooperators, I think it's a clean sweep [of not guilty].
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"If they believe the cooperators, I think it's hard to say, 'I believe him on the aggravated stalking, but I don't believe him on the murder-for-hire.' I'm not saying it's impossible," Cohen continued. "I'm saying there could be people on the jury that are just like, 'This guy's full of s**t. Let's just get him on this one charge.' There's also a lot of times in a jury, they're trying to get out of there. They're saying, 'I don't want this guy just to walk clean. So let's tag him on this. I agree, maybe they didn't show enough for murder-for-hire. Let's just get him on the aggravated stalking and call it a day.'
"But if they're going to get him on the aggravated stalking, and they believed the cooperators, it's hard to see that they walk him on the rest," the defense attorney conclude. "But it can happen. It could be that they split the baby. It's a tough one on this one. I think it's kind of all or nothing, in my opinion. I could be wrong... Those first two [witnesses for the prosecution] really did not come off well... There were a lot of problems with [OTF Vonnie's] jail calls... Saying 'I'm going to be on my A-game, I'm going to spin the judge.'"
Bradford Cohen's commented on the Lil Durk case before. His perspective actually put him at odds with folks like 6ix9ine who accused Durk of snitching. We'll see how closing arguments and jury deliberation goes next week.
