Rapper A$AP Rocky found not guilty in assault trial

Rapper A$AP Rocky was found not guilty of two counts of felony assault at the conclusion of a trial in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

The musician, who has two children with singer Rihanna, had faced more than two decades in prison if he had been convicted of the alleged attack on a former friend in Hollywood in 2021.

There was commotion in the courtroom as the jury's verdict was read out, with the Grammy-nominated hip hop star, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, hugging people in relief as he was declared not guilty.

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During the weeks-long trial, prosecutors said Mayers had shot a nine-millimeter semi-automatic weapon during a confrontation with Terell Ephron, also known as A$AP Relli, on November 6, 2021, in the heart of Hollywood, grazing Ephron's hand.

Mayers, 36, had insisted he had been carrying only a harmless prop gun.

The two had previously been friends, and had both been part of A$AP, a rap collective from New York, but had fallen out because other members of the group felt Mayers' commercial success had made him arrogant.

Ephron told the jury he had been lured to a parking garage for an encounter that was partially caught on grainy surveillance video.

He claimed that after the two exchanged words, Mayers pulled a gun from his waistband, put it toward Relli's stomach and said, "I'll kill you right now."

Ephron said two bullets were fired, with one of them grazing his knuckles.

Defending attorney Joe Tacopina said the weapon was "absolutely nothing more than a prop gun... a starter gun, a blank gun, a fake gun. It's used in pop movies and music videos."

Describing Ephron as "a criminal and a perjurer," Tacopina said seven police officers searched the scene of the shooting hours later but found neither shell casings nor a weapon.

Yet, after officers left, Ephron returned to the scene and discovered a pair of nine-millimeter shell casings he said he had picked up from the street where he was shot at, Tacopina said.

Neither side was able to produce the gun they said had been used on the night.

- 'Extortion' -

Tacopina said the whole story of a shooting had been manufactured to extort money from his wealthy and successful client.

Speaking after the verdict, Tacopina told reporters the jury had seen through the "mirage of a case."

"I've always said this was an extortion. The extortion played out live in court," he said.

"The district attorney should look long and hard at prosecuting Terell Ephron."

Tacopina paid tribute to Mayers and Rihanna, whom he described as "the greatest people."

There was no immediate reaction from either Mayers or Rihanna, who had been in court frequently during the trial.

A$AP Rocky shot to fame in the first half of the last decade with two mega-selling albums: "Long. Live. A$AP" and "At. Long. Last. A$AP."

In 2019, he was given a suspended prison sentence in Sweden after a fight, in an affair that caused diplomatic tensions between Stockholm and Washington, pushing then-president Donald Trump to intervene.