Rihanna appears in court for third day at A$AP Rocky’s assault trial
Singer Rihanna leaves Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. She appears in court for a third day to show support for her boyfriend A$AP Rocky. (AP Photo/Liam McEwan)
LOS ANGELES – The assault trial of A$AP Rocky often descended into petty bickering and objections involving attorneys and the key witness Friday as prosecutors attempted to persuade a downtown jury that the defendant tried to use street justice to settle a beef with a former longtime friend at a Hollywood intersection four years ago.
Pop star Rihanna — Rocky’s girlfriend and the mother of the couple’s two children — appeared in court for a third day, adding a touch of glamour to the drab ninth-floor courtroom where the case has been continuing for a week.
Terell Ephron, 36, once known as A$AP Relli, contends that A$AP Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, attacked him on Nov. 6, 2021, pulled a gun and fired twice, causing minor injuries to his left hand.
FILE PHOTO – Collaboration of the year honoree A$AP Rocky, right, and Rihanna attend the 38th annual Footwear News Achievement Awards at Cipriani South Street on Dec. 4, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, file)
Mayers’ attorney, Joe Tacopina, maintains the weapon was a prop gun from a music video that was incapable of firing real ammunition. The gun does not now exist, attorneys said.
Ephron insists he found two shell casings on the street at the scene of the altercation hours after police searched the area.
Asked whether he believed the gun allegedly handled by Mayers was a harmless prop, Ephron was unshakeable.
“Who’s going to come to a situation with a prop gun?” he responded as the jury looked on.
Under hours of questioning from Tacopina, a clearly defensive Ephron showed pained expressions, often answering that he could not recall calls and texts made in the hours after the incident.
“You’re not talking clear,” Ephron told Tacopina several times in answer to simple yes-no questions. “You’re not explaining yourself.”
Such exchanges sometimes shifted into sniping between Mayers’ hard-charging lawyer and Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, who have engaged all week in an aggressive war of words in which they speak over each other and disregard the judge’s aggravated commands to cease arguing and halt speaking objections.
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Mark Allen was reduced to shouting, “Stop it!” to Lewin and Tacopina at several junctures.
Mayers’ trial began Jan. 24 after the rapper-turned-fashion designer rejected a plea deal that would have required him to plead guilty to one of two felony charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and serve six months behind bars.
If convicted of both counts as charged, he would face up to 24 years in prison, according to prosecutors.
In his opening statement, Tacopina accused Ephron of being driven by “jealousy, lies and greed,” and alleged that he invented parts of his story of being attacked to bolster an attempt to siphon cash from Mayers.
Former talent manager Ephron testified that since it became known that he had gone to police about the November 2021 altercation, and criminal charges were brought against Mayers, his career in hip-hop management was “done.”
Asked what it meant in the hip-hop world to be labeled a snitch, Ephron responded, “It means you’re canceled.”
The witness acknowleged that on the morning after the shooting, on Nov. 7, 2021, he texted Mayers’ then-manager, telling him that he’d been “set up” and Mayers had shot at him twice, with one bullet having grazed his knuckles.
But Ephron denied that the communication was an attempt to have A$AP Rocky shell out cash to keep the incident quiet.
The witness said he no longer works with anyone with whom he once did business.
“All my artists turned on me, my A$AP friends turned on me” when the case came to light, Ephron testified Thursday.
Ephron, Mayers and several others were part of the A$AP Mob hip-hop collective formed in 2006 in Harlem, New York City, consisting of rappers, record producers, music video directors, and fashion designers. Many members, including Mayers and Ephron, had been friends since high school.
However, the pair had a falling out and when Mayers allegedly demanded the two meet on a Hollywood street, Ephron testified, he was surrounded by several of his former friends from the rap collective.
After the scuffle, Mayers and the others ran away, and Ephron said he met up with his girlfriend and at around 11 p.m. that night returned to the scene of the altercation — which had already been searched by seven police officers, according to previous testimony. Ephron told jurors he discovered two shell casings on the street.
“So happens, I find (shell casings),” Ephron testified, adding that he took a picture of the cartridge casings where he found them and placed the casings in a paper bag.
The witness said the public didn’t know he was involved in the incident until a member of the A$AP rap crew posted that Ephron was a “snitch” who had told police that Mayers had fired a gun at him.
Mayers was arrested in April 2022 upon returning to Los Angeles from a trip with Rihanna to her native Barbados.
Ephron filed a civil lawsuit for assault, battery and emotional distress against Mayers in August 2022.
Before Ephron was called to the stand for the first time Tuesday, Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Thomas Zizzo Jr. — son of Erika Jayne, former star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” — testified that seven police officers used flashlights to search the scene for evidence hours after the reported shooting, but came away emptyhanded.
The trial resumes Monday morning with Ephron expected back on the stand. (CNS)
