Video of A$AP Rocky Allegedly Shooting Friend Finally Revealed
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Grainy video allegedly showing rapper A$AP Rocky firing a gun at his former friend A$AP Relli on a Hollywood street corner two years ago was made public for the first time Wednesday inside a Los Angeles courtroom.
Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, sat at a defense table and watched the clip — along with a packed courtroom — on the first day of his probable cause hearing that will determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to take him to trial on two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
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Mayers has pleaded not guilty in the felony case, contending through his hard-hitting defense lawyer Joe Tacopina that he did not shoot Relli and believes he’s the victim of a shakedown.
The video could prove pivotal. It shows a group of men involved in a scuffle on the corner of Selma Ave. and Vista Del Mar Ave. in Hollywood, Calif., on Nov. 6, 2021. It had no sound when it was played Wednesday. The men were tiny figures appearing mostly in a small corner of the screen. There was no obvious shooting, at least without enhancement. Captured by a camera across the street from the incident and across a parking lot, the video ended with one member of the group sprinting away and the rest scattering.
“It’s a little blurry, but you can make out everybody,” Relli, born Terell Ephron, testified.
In a full day of testimony that turned so combative in the afternoon, the judge ordered a break to cool down, Ephron claimed he was the victim of an armed ambush. He told the court he and Mayers had become estranged leading up to the incident and that he believed the Grammy-nominated rapper had become “big-headed.”
Ephron said he believed Mayers had failed to deliver on a promise to pay funeral expenses for one of their friends, so he sent Mayers a text on October 28, 2021, that read, “You so fucking fake it’s sad.” Mayers never responded, he testified. (Tacopina – known for representing high-profile clients including Meek Mill, YG and Donald Trump – later asked Ephron if he eventually learned Mayers paid for the entire funeral. “Yeah, I heard that later,” Ephron responded.)
“Don’t ever forget who introduced you to this life,” Ephron wrote in another text. He told the court he was the one who brought Mayers into the A$AP fold when they were high school students in New York and wasn’t intimidated by his success.
After his texts went unanswered, Ephron said he was riding in a car with A$AP Bari, whose real name is Jabari Shelton, when he purportedly overheard Mayers talking about him on a phone call. “He said he’d beat me up, that I’m emotional,” Ephron testified.
According to Ephron, Mayers finally reached out to him directly the evening of November 6, 2021, with calls and texts asking where Ephron was staying during a trip to Los Angeles. They agreed to talk face to face, and Mayers allegedly showed up to their meeting flanked by Illijah Ulanger, also known as A$AP Illz, and Jamel Phillips, also known as A$AP Twelvyy.
Ephron testified Mayers pulled out a gun during an initial interaction around the corner from the alleged shooting and said, “I’ll kill you right now.” Ephron said he dared Mayers to shoot him.
“Shoot that shit. Why you brought a gun if you’re not going to use it? You don’t scare me,” he allegedly told Mayers.
Ephron testified that people were walking nearby, outside the W Hotel in Hollywood, so Mayers allegedly put the gun in his waistband and started to walk away. Ephron told the court Phillips appeared to be concealing a knife.
“I was talking a bunch of shit,” he said. “I was letting (Mayers) know how much he failed everybody, because nobody else was brave enough to say how they feel about this man.” Ephron said he told Mayers one of their friends was suffering from a crack addiction while another was living in the projects.
“I wasn’t doing anything physically. I was just so mad. It didn’t sit well with me, and I wanted him to hear my side. I knew I was never going to see this man again,” Ephron testified.
He claimed Mayers eventually turned around and fired an initial shot that “grazed” his left hand. He claimed he rushed to grab Ulanger to use him “as a shield.” He said Mayers fired two or three more times before everyone fled the scene. He said he returned later that night and found two 9mm shell casings that he photographed and gave to police.
Under heated cross-examination by Tacopina, Ephron said he didn’t call 911 because he wanted to speak with a lawyer first. He admitted he didn’t seek medical attention for his hand until he returned to New York. A photo of his alleged wounds displayed in the courtroom showed small patches of raw, red skin on the knuckles of three fingers.
In the hours after the alleged shooting, Ephron sent Mayers a series of text messages that were admitted as evidence. “U should’ve killed me,” he wrote it one. “I dead loved ur dumb ass,” and “Y’all n—-s set me up u try to take me from my daughter,” he wrote in two others.
Mayers responded with texts that immediately questioned what Ephron was saying. Mayers suggested he take his allegations to police.
“Rel wtf why u telling people I shot at you,” Mayers wrote in one response. “Stop making shit up rell,” he wrote in another.
“Now u tryna extort n—-s talking bout i shot u n shot u 4 times…all types of nonsense,” Mayers texted. “Call the police… you weirdo.”
The hearing was the first time Ephron testified under oath in the case, and Tacopina gave a preview of his defense with relentless questioning about Ephron’s alleged financial motives. He repeatedly referred to Ephron’s related civil lawsuit, which is seeking monetary damages, and the fact that Ephron spoke to a lawyer before going to police or visiting the hospital.
“I assume no one suggested to you that you should go to the hospital to get medical treatment to help your civil case, right?” Tacopina asked, leading to an objection by the prosecutor that the judge sustained.
“Did you ever ask any of Rocky’s friends or associates or managers to pay you millions of dollars to make the criminal case disappear?” Tacopina asked.
“No,” Ephron replied.
“You never said, ‘Give me millions of dollars and I will disappear and they can’t prosecute you?’” Tacopina pressed.
“I never said that,” Ephron testified.
“And you know you’re under oath right now?” Tacopina asked.
“I’m aware that I’m under oath,” he replied.
Mayers, 35, pleaded not guilty last year to the two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney. He remains free on a $550,000 bond and could face up to nine years in prison if convicted as charged.
The judge ordered him back on Nov. 20 to finish the hearing that started Wednesday. As he left the courthouse, Mayers posed for selfies with fans and signed a man’s shoe. “I feel like how I look — good,” he told Rolling Stone.
The “Praise The Lord” artist — who shares two children with Rihanna — also is fighting the lawsuit brought by Ephron alleging assault, battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. First reported by Rolling Stone, the civil complaint filed in August 2022 unmasked Ephron as the alleged victim in the shooting investigation that led to Mayers’ arrest in April 2022.
Speaking to Rolling Stone last year, Tacopina said his client didn’t shoot anyone and was the victim of a failed shakedown at the meeting on Nov. 6, 2021.
“Rocky didn’t shoot him by any stretch,” Tacopina said, calling the assault allegation a “false scenario” at the heart of “a plain and blatant classic attempt at extortion.” The lawyer said Ephron had been badgering Mayers for money.
“He’s a failed associate — ex-associate — of Rocky’s, and he’s jealous,” Tacopina said of Ephron. “He was trying to get money from Rocky. He wanted Rocky to support him. He made it clear. There were repeated attempts where he tried to ask for money in lieu of not causing problems for Rocky. That’s what he said. We have all this memorialized in text messages and otherwise, so it’s an extortion.”
At the hearing Wednesday, Ephron was adamant he didn’t resent Mayers’ success. He considered it a reflection on the A$AP Mob and sought Mayers’ approval.
“He’s the top capo. He got put in a good position through A$AP,” Ephron testified. “He’s got the answers. The biggest avenue (to success) is getting a cosign from (him).”
But Ephron said Mayers made “open-ended promises” that never panned out. “He told me he would get behind my music label,” Ephron testified. He said that never happened, and neither did a “clothing” venture.
“Do you feel jealousy toward Rocky,” Tacopina asked.
“No, not at all,” Ephron responded. “That’s my brother…I knew him before A$AP was a thing.” He claimed Mayers’ alleged “lack of response” to his fellow A$AP Mob members is what upset him most. He said the current state of the group was alarming. “Everybody’s broke or bums,” he testified.
Ephron’s former civil lawyers Jamal Tooson and Brian Hurwitz previously told Rolling Stone that the “merits” of the case against Mayers were “thoroughly investigated by both law enforcement and the Los Angeles District Attorney prior to the decision to not only arrest A$AP Rocky but charge him.”
Ephron’s new lawyer on the civil case is Camille Vasquez, the attorney who shot to fame representing Johnny Depp in his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard. Vasquez and Ephron filed a second civil complaint against Mayers in September, alleging he and Tacopina defamed Ephron with the extortion allegation.
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