A Los Angeles County jury has found a man guilty of sending his 17-year-old son to kill rapper PnB Rock.
Jurors convicted Freddie Trone, 42, of one count of murder, two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery.
Both sides at the two-week trial agreed the teenager walked into Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in South Los Angeles in September of 2022 and shot the Philadelphia hip-hop star while robbing him of his jewellery as he ate with the mother of his four-year-old daughter.
The prosecution said he was acting on his father’s orders, while the defence said Trone was only an accessory after the fact.
The now-19-year-old, who has not been named, was charged with murder but is in the custody of the juvenile system and a judge has found he is not currently competent to stand trial.
Another man, Tremont Jones, was found guilty Wednesday of two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy. He was not charged with murder.
His lawyer David Haas said he plans to appeal, while Trone’s lawyer Winston McKesson said he plans to file a motion for a new trial.
“There was no evidence produced that he conspired to commit murder,” Mr McKesson said. “There’s no evidence there was a conversation about murder, no evidence there was a conversation about a gun.
“There is no evidence he gave his son a gun, and no evidence he told him to shoot the guy. The only evidence the jury found is that he dropped him off and picked him up.”
PnB Rock, the Philadelphia rapper whose legal name is Rakim Allen, was best known for his 2016 hit Selfish and for guest appearances on other artists’ songs such as YFN Lucci’s Everyday We Lit and Ed Sheeran’s Cross Me with Chance the Rapper. He was 30.
Trone denied any part in prompting the killing.
“I never had nothing to do with it,” Trone said in court. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t tell nobody to do nothing. I didn’t hand nobody no gun.”
Trone acknowledged on the stand that the crimes were “heinous” and that his son was “dangerous”.
Deputy district attorney Timothy Richardson seized on both during his closing argument, saying: “But you send your 17-year-old son with knowledge of the problems he possesses to do this?”
Mr Richardson emphasised to jurors that a non-shooter can be guilty of felony murder when they are a “major participant” who acted with “reckless indifference to human life.”
Video showed Trone in the parking lot of the restaurant about 30 minutes before the killing. He said he had reason to be there because he was drumming up business for his nearby beauty shop.
Mr Richardson showed a surveillance image of Jones fist-bumping the rapper, whose arm had valuable pieces of jewellery on it. Prosecutors said Jones then tipped Trone off to the rapper’s presence.
