Admitted Shooter Grilled on Shifting Stories at Lil Durk Murder-for-Hire Trial

The admitted gunman in the Lil Durk murder-for-hire trial faced a bruising cross-examination on 28 August 2026, as defence lawyer Brian Steel confronted him with jail calls and his own recorded statements to federal investigators — statements that appeared to shift markedly over the course of a single interview.

The cross-examination of Kasey "OTF Jam" Hester came on the fifth day of the trial in Los Angeles, where rapper Lil Durk, born Durk Banks, faces federal charges of conspiracy to use interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire under 18 U.S.C. § 1958(a). The case docket is United States v. Grant, case number 2:24-cr-00621 (CourtListener). Banks was arrested on 25 October 2024 on suspicion of ordering the killing of rival rapper Quando Rondo, born Tyquian Bowman, in 2022 (Reuters).

Prosecutors told jurors in opening statements that Banks set in motion a plan to stalk, hunt and kill Bowman, and that five men were paid to carry it out. The shooters missed Bowman but killed his cousin, Saviay'a Robinson, known as Lul Pab, at a gas station near the Beverly Center in Los Angeles (Courthouse News).

Under prosecution questioning, Hester testified that Banks placed a bounty on Bowman's head after a 2020 confrontation in Atlanta that ended with the fatal shooting of Banks's friend King Von. Hester said he was one of three gunmen who opened fire on Bowman's vehicle. Bowman survived; Robinson did not. Hester also identified Durk Banks, DeAndre Wilson and David Lindsey as participants in the alleged plot (LA Mag). He told the court he wanted to back out of the shooting but believed doing so could get him killed, and that the shooting left "a bad taste in his mouth" (Courthouse News).

Steel's cross-examination aimed squarely at Hester's credibility — and at the gaps between his earlier statements and his trial testimony. Jurors heard portions of Hester's first recorded interview with federal investigators, dated 24 May 2023. That interview came only after Hester had already spoken with officials several times without being recorded. In it, Hester said he had "never" spoken with Banks about King Von's death before travelling to California and "never had a conversation" with Banks about putting money on Bowman's head before landing at San Diego airport. When an investigator asked whether he knew about a bounty on Quando Rondo, Hester replied, "I don't know. I really can't say." About two hours later in the same interview, he said of any bounty: "It was never a number. But Durk let it be known, 'If you get him, you're gonna be straight'" (Rolling Stone).

Steel pressed Hester to explain why his answers appeared to "dramatically change" over the hours-long interview, and why his testimony at trial went further still. The defence lawyer also confronted Hester with a May 2023 jail call to his wife in which Hester told her to "trust" him (Rolling Stone).

The path that put Hester on the witness stand began with a traffic stop. Hester was arrested riding in a car with a gun while on parole after serving 12 years on an attempted murder conviction. While in custody, he slipped a note to a guard reading, "I know about murders. I don't want to talk on camera. I know a lot." By 18 May 2023, he had signed a cooperation agreement with federal officials (Rolling Stone).

Steel, who also represented the rapper Young Thug in the YSL RICO trial, has framed Banks's lyrics as art rather than evidence. Earlier in the trial, jurors were shown a video titled "Redman," and Steel called Banks a poet who paints "pictures with words" (Rolling Stone). During cross-examination of Hester, Steel described the witness as a coward and a violent criminal who had murdered and robbed at will (Courthouse News).

For a general audience following the case, the central question the jury must weigh is whether Hester's shifting accounts reflect the normal process of a cooperating witness revealing more over time — or, as the defence argues, a credibility problem that undermines the prosecution's case entirely.