Lil Durk accuses federal prosecutors of burying critical information as his legal team pushes to remove the judge in his California murder-for-hire case, arguing the government hid two sets of violent threats aimed at the court and the lead prosecutor for months.
Durk’s lawyers say prosecutors concealed four graphic voicemails left for Magistrate Judge Patricia Donahue on February 22, which referenced Durk and co-defendant Deandre Wilson by name.
The filing says the caller warned of mass destruction and threatened to kill the judge while demanding Durk’s release.
“If they get life, I’m going to burn this [expletive] down. I’m talking ’bout the world, and I’m going to burn it, burn it to the ground,” the caller raged.
According to the motion, the FBI initiated a full investigation within days, which was executed by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the “Guardian Squad.” However, the defense did not learn of it until almost eight months later, on October 1.
The motion also says prosecutors kept quiet about an April 28 call where a separate man allegedly threatened to kill AUSA Ian Yanniello and everyone working at the courthouse.
Durk’s attorneys argue that both threats triggered extensive coordination among the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the court; however, no one disclosed the investigations while judges continued to handle Durk’s case.
His team says the government allowed Judge Donahue to preside over Durk’s May 8 detention hearing despite being the named victim of the threats.
The motion states this deprived Durk of the ability to challenge the judge’s neutrality and undermined every ruling issued while the threats remained secret.
“The integrity of criminal prosecutions depends on transparency and impartiality. Here, both were fatally compromised. Because these violations strike at the core of due process and the constitutional guarantee of receiving fair hearings in front of an impartial decision-maker, dismissal is the only adequate remedy,” Lil Durk’s lawyer Drew Findling said.
The filing blasts the silence as a direct violation of Durk’s due process rights.
Durk’s lawyers argue the entire U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California should be removed from the case. They say the office acted as a victim, investigator and prosecutor at the same time, creating what they call a conflict that can’t be repaired.
The motion says prosecutors only began revealing pieces of the threats after they sought an anonymous jury, using the same undisclosed information to support their request.
Durk’s attorneys claim the threats would have remained hidden if the government didn’t need them to bolster that motion.
They now want the indictment dismissed or the case reassigned to a judge outside the district.
They argue that the fairness of the case has been compromised and claim that no hearing can undo the months of decisions made under what they call a cloud of undisclosed danger.
The attack left Von associate Lul Pab dead, deepening a feud that escalated between both camps and set the stage for the federal case that now holds Durk in custody.
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