A$AP Rocky Acquitted Despite Jury Believing Gun Was Real, Juror Reveals

Jurors knew the gun used was real, but A$AP Rocky was acquitted on both counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, one of the jurors later revealed.

The jury, which consisted of seven women and five men—none of the men were Black—deliberated for just over three hours on Tuesday, Feb. 18.

YouTuber Nique at Nite spoke with one of the jurors after the verdict, who said they did not believe there was enough evidence to find the rapper guilty of a felony assault charge.

According to BET, the juror said, "I think we kind of were almost at the verdict [but] we had a couple of people, including myself, who ... still had some questions and we were all thinking that a crime had been committed."

"But the thing is with the instructions we had and with the law that we didn't think that was enough evidence to convict."

During the November 2021 incident with A$AP Relli, Rocky claimed that he fired a shot at A$AP Relli as a warning using a prop gun.

Prosecutor Paul Przelomiec would later argue in closing arguments that the case came down to the question of whether Rocky's gun was real or not.

Jurors Question Credibility of Witnesses but Cite Lack of Evidence

The judge told jurors that Rocky had a right to a self-defense argument if he "reasonably believed he was in imminent danger of suffering bodily injury or of being touched unlawfully."

The juror said that he and the rest believed that the gun was real. However, they felt that the testimony of many of those witnesses was not credible.

"The feeling was there was a gun. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough evidence to convict on the charges that were handed down to us."

When it came to a theory laid out by the defense that a prop gun vanished behind the church doors after the incident, the juror described it as "a little mysterious," noting that many of the testimonies did not seem consistent or truthful.

"We just tried to stick to what was presented and stick to the instructions that we were given, and that's how we reached our verdict."

A second juror told Rolling Stone that their vote came down to reasonable doubt.

"We spent a lot of time discussing the concept of reasonable doubt, and the chain of evidence that was provided to us, setting aside personalities."

Speaking outside the court in the hours after the verdict, Rocky said, per Refinery29, "Thank God first. You gotta thank God first. And I really wanna thank to jury for making the right decision."

Tags

A$AP Rocky, Rihanna