By ANDREW DALTON
COMPTON — A Los Angeles County jury on Wednesday found a man guilty of sending his 17-year-old son to kill rapper PnB Rock.
After deliberating for about four hours, jurors convicted Freddie Trone, 42, of one count of murder, two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery.
Both sides at the two-week trial agreed that the teen walked into Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in South Los Angeles on Sept. 12, 2022, and shot the Philadelphia hip-hop star while robbing him of his jewelry as he ate with the mother of his 4-year-old daughter.
This image released by the Los Angeles Police Department shows Freddie Lee Trone. Los Angeles police on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022, named Trone the suspect in the fatal shooting of rapper PnB Rock. (Los Angeles Police Department via AP)
The prosecution said he was acting on his father’s orders while the defense said Trone was only an accessory after the fact.
The now-19-year-old was charged with murder but is in the custody of the juvenile system and a judge has found that he is not currently competent to stand trial.
The Associated Press does not typically name minors who are accused of crimes.
Another man, Tremont Jones, was found guilty Wednesday of two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy. Jones was not charged with murder.
David Haas, Jones’ lawyer, said he plans to appeal, while Trone’s lawyer, Winston McKesson, said he plans to file a motion for a new trial.
“There was no evidence produced that he conspired to commit murder,” McKesson told The Associated Press after the verdict. “There’s no evidence there was a conversation about murder, no evidence there was a conversation about a gun.”
He added, “There is no evidence he gave his son a gun, and no evidence he told him to shoot the guy. The only evidence the jury found is that he dropped him off and picked him up.”
PnB Rock, the Philadelphia rapper whose legal name is Rakim Allen, was best known for his 2016 hit “Selfish” and for guest appearances on other artists’ songs such as YFN Lucci’s “Everyday We Lit” and Ed Sheeran’s “Cross Me” with Chance the Rapper. He was 30.
The defense made the rare and risky move of putting Trone on the stand, where he vehemently denied any part in prompting the killing.
“I never had nothing to do with it,” Trone testified Monday. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t tell nobody to do nothing. I didn’t hand nobody no gun.”
Trone acknowledged on the stand that the crimes were “heinous” and that his son was “dangerous.”
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Deputy District Attorney Timothy Richardson seized on both during his closing argument, saying, “But you send your 17-year-old son with knowledge of the problems he possesses to do this?”
Richardson emphasized to jurors that a non-shooter can be guilty of felony murder when they are a “major participant” who acted with “reckless indifference to human life.”
Video showed Trone in the parking lot of the restaurant about 30 minutes before the killing. Trone testified that he had reason to be there because he was drumming up business for his nearby beauty shop.
Richardson showed a surveillance image of Jones fist-bumping Allen, whose arm had valuable pieces of jewelry on it. Prosecutors said Jones then tipped Trone off to the rapper’s presence, and his jewelry.
