Recently unsealed court documents now link embattled Chicago rapper Lil Durk — who has already been charged with murder in Los Angeles — to the fatal 2022 shooting of a suspected gang leader outside a community center on Chicago’s Far South Side.

The warrant application was filed in April 2023 but was not unsealed until Wednesday, ahead of Thursday’s scheduled detention hearing in the Lil Durk murder-for-hire case.

Lil Durk — née Devontay Durk Banks — was indicted last month on charges of financing a nationwide murder-for-hire plot to seek revenge for the 2020 murder of fellow Chicago rapper King Von in Atlanta.

The recently unsealed filing in U.S. District Court in Chicago alleges that Banks was behind the Jan. 27, 2022, killing of 24-year-old Stephon Mack, who was shot shortly after leaving the Youth Peace Center of Roseland on West 111th Street had left. At the time of his death, Mack was the leader of the Smashville faction of the Gangster Disciples, according to the FBI.

Banks’ brother, Dontay Banks, was shot dead outside a nightclub in south suburban Harvey in 2021. According to the warrant application, the murder was committed by another Gangster Disciples faction with ties to Smashville.

“Lil Durk offered and continues to offer people money to kill those responsible for his brother’s murder, and in particular he is offering to pay money for any Gangster Disciples who are killed,” a federal agent wrote in April 2023.

Banks has not been charged in the Chicago investigation, which law enforcement sources told the Tribune remains open and active.

Earlier this 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. However, Banks will not be charged in Mack’s death. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are expected to cite the shooting as a reason to keep Banks in police custody ahead of trial.

In investigating Mack’s death, federal investigators analyzed prison phone calls, social media posts, gun purchases and lyrics from Lil Durk’s song “Ahhh Ha,” which was released about a month after the shooting.

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

Montgomery-Wilson was arrested on an unrelated charge a few weeks after Mack’s death. A New Lenox police detective then applied for and received a search warrant for the contents of his cell phone.

Investigators then discovered a text message conversation between two people that mentioned “OTF” – the rap syndicate founded by Lil Durk that prosecutors have linked to the alleged Los Angeles murder plot.

On February 10, 2022, one of the people in the text conversation asked, “What are you doing with otf,” to which the other person responded, “Nothing.”

Eight days later, in the same conversation, another text message read: “Did Durk give you the money?”

In a statement last week, Banks’ lawyers criticized the prosecution’s focus on Lil Durk’s music, citing his longtime work as a philanthropist in Chicago.

“Seeing an artist’s rap lyrics cited as ‘evidence’ against them is a glaring indication that there is no real evidence against that person,” Banks’ lawyers said in a statement to the Tribune .

“The real truth is that Durk Banks is a Grammy-winning artist, a dedicated father and a loving husband,” Banks’ lawyers added. “Mr. Banks is deeply committed to giving back to the Chicago community he loves through his Neighborhood Heroes Foundation and has hosted more than a dozen charitable events in recent years. He looks forward to fighting these false allegations in court to proceed.”

In mid-October, federal authorities charged five more people with a conspiracy to murder rapper Quando Rondo – born Tyquian Terrel Bowman – in retaliation for the November 2020 shooting of King Von. Banks is accused of financing the attempt to kill Bowman have.

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

Originally published: December 12, 2024 at 12:17 PM CST