Judge Fitzgerald partially granted and partially denied Durk Banks and his co-defendants’ motions to exclude evidence. The government will be allowed to use many exhibits at trial, including messages between Durk and alleged co-conspirators, social-media videos, portions of his DJ Akademiks interview, surveillance footage, photos, and certain evidence connected to the August 2022 shooting. However, the judge also excluded or limited several exhibits, including some gun-related material, “GDK” messages, and graphic evidence. Overall, the ruling allows prosecutors to present a significant portion of their evidence while giving the defense some important exclusions.

INCLUDED

*Video of Banks, King Von and PW-2 purchasing jewelry*

Some of the biggest evidence the jury CAN see/hear
For Durk specifically, the judge allowed
:
911 call from the August 19, 2022 shooting

Limited LASD body-camera footage and non-graphic crime-scene screenshots

One of four autopsy photographs of Saviay’a Robinson

Messages between Banks and CC-3

The social-media “Quando Rondo Challenge” video
Messages between Banks and CC-3 concerning “Country” transporting “pipes”

November 6, 2020 surveillance footage

Excerpt from Durk’s unreleased “Redman” music video

Screenshot of Durk on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast displaying a large amount of cash

Photos of firearms obtained from PW-2’s iCloud

Screenshot of Von wearing OTF and O-Block chains

Photos of Banks, Wilson and others with cash

Video of Banks and others filming “Pissed Me Off”

Several excerpts from Durk’s May 23, 2023 DJ Akademiks interview, including discussion of:

“snitches and rats”
NBA YoungBoy and Von
“slide for Von” comments
an address

A screenshot recovered from Banks’s cellphone

Messages between Banks and his manager

Multiple messages between Banks and CC-4, including messages from August 19–20, 2022

Messages concerning an ATF investigation, although they must be sanitized

August 2023 messages between Banks and others

Revised messages/attachments

PW-1’s handwritten note

EXCLUDED

Exhibit 144: video allegedly taken during podcast filming showing multiple people with firearms

Exhibit 183: screenshots from Wilson’s “Seen It All” music video

Exhibit 202: Banks/Wilson messages where Durk allegedly says “GDK”

Exhibit 221: July 6, 2023 messages concerning Wilson

Exhibit 223: messages concerning guns

Several other exhibits were declared moot, meaning the court did not need to decide the original objection—often because the government withdrew, modified, or otherwise resolved the exhibit.

Correction: Quando Rondo Affiliate called Durk **

Durk said “Take the peace of this switch” 🥶

The feds have evidence from a message thread on Christmas Day where Durk told other CC that Quando called him and asked for peace and Durk refused and instead continued trying to kill him.

This is a layout of what the government plans to PROVE during trial. Durk was allegedly still trying to kill Quando after the Pab hit.

Here are a couple of key points:

Prosecutors estimate their case-in-chief will take about 11–13 court days, including cross-examination. They say stipulations could eliminate roughly 8–10 government witnesses who would otherwise testify about technical/foundational matters such as phone extractions, surveillance footage, and prison records.

Prosecutors specifically point to a December 25, 2022 text/voice-message thread involving a burner phone allegedly used by Durk, Wilson, CC-4 and CC-5. According to the filing, Durk allegedly rejected an attempt to make peace with T.B.’s side and made statements prosecutors interpret as showing the feud and murder conspiracy were still active.

The government also plans to use messages from a chat called “The Family.” In August 2023, members allegedly discussed concerns that PW-1 was “ready to snitch.” Prosecutors say other messages from that thread will be presented as admissions connecting Durk and Wilson to the Los Angeles murder.

The filing confirms the government expects to call cooperating witnesses who have plea agreements. Prosecutors anticipate the defense attacking their credibility and want permission, under certain circumstances, to introduce the plea agreements’ truthful-testimony requirements.

We are 3 days before trial

UPDATE: Judge Denies Lil Durk’s Motion to Suppress Phone Evidence

Judge Michael Fitzgerald denied Durk Banks’ motion to suppress evidence obtained from a cellphone seized by the GBI in 2021.

Even assuming there were problems with how GBI originally seized or kept the phone/data, the judge ruled that the FBI’s 2026 investigation was sufficiently separate. The FBI obtained its own federal warrants before searching the forensic extraction and physical phone.

The court also rejected the defense’s arguments regarding the FBI’s delay and the government’s late disclosure of the evidence.

Bottom line: Durk’s motion was DENIED, and Trial Exhibit 200 — several images recovered from the 2021 phone extraction — will be allowed into evidence at trial.

Durk’s team is working around the clock during this last weekend before trial. They just filed this motion late on August 15, 2026.

As I figured, the defense has filed a motion to dismiss count two of the 4th indictment due to duplicity.

As I mentioned before the 4th indictment was not new but was filed to correct the 3rd previous indictment.

refer back to https://www.reddit.com/r/LilDurkTrial/s/rOXC6qOP7O

The defense makes two main arguments:

Count Two allegedly fails to state a crime properly. The defense says the stalking statute requires an intent to harm a particular person. But Count Two allegedly says only that the defendants intended to act against “another person,” without identifying a specific intended victim. Banks’ lawyers argue that because a conspiracy requires at least the same criminal intent required for the underlying offense, the indictment is missing an essential element.

Count Two is allegedly duplicitous. “Duplicitous” means one count improperly combines multiple separate offenses. The defense points out that the alleged conduct concerns both T.B. and S.R. They argue that stalking each person would constitute a separate offense, so putting both victims into one conspiracy count could create a jury-unanimity problem: some jurors could believe the conspiracy targeted T.B., while others believe it targeted S.R., yet they could still return one guilty verdict.

Durk’s team filed another reply to their motion about the cell phone evidence on August 14th.

The defense also argues that the problems continued after the phone was searched. They claim GBI extracted and retained essentially all of the phone’s data without properly separating material covered by the warrant from unrelated private information.

According to the defense, this effectively turned the Rockdale warrant into a “general warrant” allowing the government to keep Durk’s digital information available for future investigations.

They are asking the judge for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether GBI actually sorted the phone data into responsive and non-responsive material, when that occurred, and what information was considered responsive.

GBI extracted Durk’s cell phone in GA back in 2021

The evidence sat with them for years

FBI got a copy of the report from GBI

They found images that are related to the case (Lul Timm, Quando, etc.)

The defense’s argument is that the phone should not have been touched to begin with (I agree)

We are still waiting on a ruling from the judge on the motion to use it

Timeline:

July 2021 — GBI seizes the phones. The phones were taken after the home invasion at Durk’s Braselton, Georgia residence. The defense says the original Gwinnett County warrant did not authorize seizure of Durk’s personal phones.

August 2021 — GBI gets another warrant and extracts the phones. According to the defense filings, investigators subsequently obtained a Rockdale County warrant and made forensic copies of the phone data. That means messages, photos, contacts, application data and other recoverable material could already have been copied off the phones at that time.

The extracted data stays with law enforcement for years. Durk’s lawyers say the GBI retained the complete extracted data for roughly five years instead of segregating or destroying information outside the Georgia investigation.

2026 — the FBI gets a copy of that extraction. The federal government obtained the forensic material from Georgia. Reporting on the filing describes the federal evidence as a hard drive containing forensic images of the two iPhones.

July 8, 2026 — FBI gets a federal search warrant. A federal magistrate authorized investigators to search that forensic copy for evidence relevant to the Durk murder-for-hire prosecution.

I know everyone is shocked to hear the Feds say they have 35 witnesses

Although this may be true, let's not forget he also has co-defendants. Some of these witnesses may not pertain to him at all but specifically to the case. The feds also said 20 of 35 have important information.

Trap Lore Ross is reporting that one witness was said to be a detective who arrested him in the past and also someone with surveillance video of the shooters at San Diego airport I am not shocked by them going to find previous detectives. The goal is to make Durk look extremely violent dating back a decade.

If you retrace their steps you can definitely see how they could have a lot. We also already know there are 3 prosecution witnesses (PW’s) they are definitely testifying.

This shooting was in broad daylight on a busy street

Other possible witnesses:

-Whoever rented the cars
-Private plane staff
-In and Out burger stafff/cameras
-Gas station staff/owners/surveillance
-Any people on the street or in cars at the time of the shooting
-Air Bnb owner
-Beverly Hills cops that were on the seen
-Anybody that was with Quando in that car
-Gang experts
-Medical Examiner that examined Pub’s body

Judge threatened to revoke Pro hac vice on Steel and any lawyer Durk has on his team, rather than denying the Gag Order completely. This allows them to speak to the press but if anything inappropriate is said he will throw them off the case by taking the privilege of an out-of-state lawyer to represent Durk in LA.

I'm not sure about Drew but Steel is using Pro hac vice to represent Durk in LA since he is a Georgia lawyer.

Pro hac vice is Latin for “for this occasion.” In court, it means a lawyer who is not admitted to practice in that particular state or federal district gets special permission from the judge to represent a client in that specific case.

Follow Mel 👇🏽

Follow @youvegtmel on X

and @imnotalawyerbut on Tiktok

Government request for a gag order

❌ DENIED

Government MIL #2 — exclude irrelevant evidence/arguments about the government repeatedly changing indictments/making mistakes

❌ DENIED AS MOOT

Government MIL #3 — exclude/restrict defense expert testimony

❌ DENIED — the recap says all four defense experts could testify, although the judge indicated he might revisit expert issues

Government MIL #5 — “Piss Me Off” video

✅ GRANTED — the video will be allowed at trial

Banks’ motion to suppress phone evidence from the phone taken after the 2021 Georgia-home burglary

⏳ TAKEN UNDER SUBMISSION

Durk’s motion to exclude the government’s gang expert

⏳ TAKEN UNDER SUBMISSION

Lindsey’s motion to exclude hearsay / limit conspiracy statements

⏳ TAKEN UNDER SUBMISSION

Government MIL #6 — song excerpts

⚠️** No final ruling yet in the recap. The government wanted 10 excerpts; the judge told prosecutors to narrow their request and choose **2 from the songs he identified for further argument at the next hearing.

I know that you have to send a warrant to Apple for them to release the data but if Durk was locked up in October 2024

Why did they complete an examination report in December 2025?

I am sure they already had possession of the phone but it normally doesn’t take that long.

7000 pages of data from CC4’s phone alone.

About CC4

CC-4 as a “long-time OTF affiliate.” More importantly, investigators alleged that on August 18, 2022, OTF members learned that Quando Rondo (identified as T.B.) was in Los Angeles through CC-4.

Overt Act 1: After King Von’s killing, Banks allegedly used coded language to tell Wilson, CC-4, CC-2, CC-5 and others that he would pay a bounty/reward to anyone participating in T.B.’s killing.

Overt Act 2: On August 18, 2022, Banks and CC-4 allegedly learned that T.B. was in California and staying at a Los Angeles hotel

PW-1 definitely was someone there and possibly a shooter

Exhibit 293: The government is seeking admission of the note.

According to the government, it is a note written by PW-1 while PW-1 was in custody, which prosecutors say indicates PW-1 had knowledge of murders. Lindsey objects to its admission.

The government says “it intends to seek admission of the note” either for a non-hearsay purpose or as a prior consistent statement.

Judge will probably rule on this August 13, 2026

The government is asking Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald to deny Lindsey’s request to keep a large amount of alleged co-conspirator evidence away from the jury. Lindsey argues that statements made by alleged conspirators before he allegedly joined the conspiracy, around the time of the August 2022 murder, and after his alleged role ended should not be admissible against him.