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Two days after his stunning acquittal on murder-for-hire charges in Los Angeles, Chicago-born rapper Lil Durk posted a photo of his high-powered trial team on social media along with a caption talking about freedom.

“Against all odds, we’re stronger together,” he wrote in an Instagram post Sunday that has more than 2.5 million likes. “…I feel all the love and positive energy. Now let me be free to help save our kids and bring unity back to our communities. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.”

But the Grammy award-winning South Side rapper, whose real name is Durk Banks, isn’t going anywhere just yet.

Though he was found not guilty Friday of charges tied to the Los Angeles murder of a rival’s cousin, Banks was still in a federal jail cell on Monday, still facing a racketeering indictment alleging he orchestrated the 2022 killing of Stephon Mack, 24, outside a Chicago youth center.

Banks’ attorneys, meanwhile, are expected to file a motion seeking his release from jail while the case is pending, given the recent acquittal.

The counts are far more serious than the murder-for-fire and stalking charges Banks beat last week. Known technically as VICAR, or “violent crimes in aid of racketeering activity,” they can carry mandatory life in prison if certain elements are proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Those VICAR counts remain pending because the federal judge overseeing the case in Los Angeles severed that part of the indictment shortly before trial began, saying that bringing in complicated evidence of a Chicago murder risked confusing the jury and prejudicing Banks.

In a hearing on the matter in July, U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald accused the government of trying to expand the indictment at the 11th hour to make the case more difficult to defend. Though he called it a “clever” move, the judge said it was a matter of “having the Chicago tail wag the Los Angeles dog.”

“It’s not as if the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois had become highly suspicious of Mr. Banks and his music business, and therefore, had been investigating this for years,” Fitzgerald said, according to a transcript in court records. “Rather, this very much is the result of what happened in Los Angeles.”

Banks, 33, was originally charged in October 2024 with five others in a plot to kill rapper Quando Rondo — born Tyquian Terrel Bowman — in retaliation for the November 2020 shooting death of King Von. Banks was accused of bankrolling the effort to kill Bowman.

Bowman, his sister and his cousin Saviay’a Robinson, 24, were riding in Bowman’s black Cadillac Escalade near a gas station in West Hollywood in August 2022 when gunmen opened fire, according to the federal charges. Bowman and his sister were not injured, but Robinson was struck multiple times and killed.

After a three-week trial at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles, Banks was acquitted of all charges. Two of his associates, Deandre Wilson and David Lindsey, were convicted of stalking charges, but found not guilty of murder-for-hire.

The trial, meanwhile, developed into a daily, star-studded spectacle that was viral on social media. Durk supporters including music stars Machine Gun Kelly and Ye — the Chicago artist formerly known as Kanye West — appeared in the audience, and large groups of fans, livestreamers and other content creators gathered outside the courthouse.

After the verdict, Banks’ attorney, Drew Findling, said he was “elated” by the outcome.

“When you have the opportunity to say to the United States of America, ‘You were wrong for indicting this young man,’ that’s an incredible power and responsibility,” he said.

First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement: “While we are disappointed with the jury’s decision regarding Durk Banks, a.k.a. ‘Lil Durk,’ we look forward to presenting our evidence at his second trial.”

The superseding indictment filed by prosecutors earlier this year added allegations that Banks was behind the Jan. 27, 2022, killing of Mack, who was shot to death shortly after he exited the Youth Peace Center of Roseland on West 111th Street. At the time of his death, according to the FBI, Mack was the leader of the Smashville faction of the Gangster Disciples.

According to a search warrant affidavit unsealed in Chicago, Mack’s slaying was retaliation for the killing of Banks’ brother, Dontay Banks, who was shot to death outside a nightclub in south suburban Harvey in 2021. Another Gangster Disciples faction with ties to Smashville carried out that murder, the affidavit alleged.

“Lil Durk was and still is offering money for people to kill those responsible for his brother’s murder, and more specifically, offering to pay money for any Gangster Disciple that is killed,” a federal agent wrote in April 2023.

That year, federal prosecutors in Chicago charged two men, Anthony Montgomery-Wilson and Preston Powell, with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire in Mack’s killing.

In probing Mack’s death, federal investigators analyzed jail phone calls, social media postings and firearms purchases, as well as lyrics from Lil Durk’s song “Ahhh Ha,” released about a month after the shooting.

The warrant application goes on to say Montgomery-Wilson and Powell “may have exchanged text messages concerning payment for Mack’s murder.”

Montgomery-Wilson was arrested on an unrelated charge a few weeks after Mack’s death. A detective with the New Lenox Police Department then applied for and was granted a warrant to search the contents of his cellphone.

Investigators then allegedly discovered a two-person text message conversation that mentioned “OTF” — the rap consortium founded by Lil Durk that prosecutors later linked to the alleged murder-for-hire plot in Los Angeles.

On Feb. 10, 2022, one of the people in the text conversation asked, “Wassup with otf,” to which the other person responded, “Nothing.”

Eight days later, in the same conversation, another text message read, “Did durk gave (sic) u that money.”

In the lead up to the trial in Los Angeles, Banks’ attorneys blasted the prosecution’s focus on Lil Durk’s music and noted his yearslong record of philanthropy in Chicago.

“When you see an artist’s rap lyrics quoted as ‘evidence’ against them, it is a glaring indication that there is no real evidence against that person,” Banks’ attorneys said in a statement to the Tribune in 2024.

The trial in Los Angeles did feature some of Banks’ music, including video of the song “Pissed Me Off.”

“Grab a gun / If you ain’t with it, put up money for a gun / Put up money for a hot car / put up money for a bond,” Banks raps on the video, while wearing a T-shirt that reads “Long Live Von.”

Banks has been in custody since Oct. 24, 2024, when federal agents executed a series of search warrants in Chicago and arrested five of his associates. At the time, Banks was in Ft. Lauderdale, where he subsequently booked international travel on separate flights to Dubai and Switzerland — but he didn’t get on either plane, according to federal prosecutors.

Instead, the FBI learned that Banks had been booked on a private jet to Italy that was scheduled to depart that night. Law enforcement arrested Banks about an hour before the flight as he drove into the airport, according to prosecutors.

Tribune wires contributed. 

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