FILE - Philadelphia rapper PnB Rock performs at the 2018 Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Del., June 16, 2018. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)
COMPTON, Calif. (AP) – A man charged with murder vehemently denied in court testimony that he sent his 17-year-old son into a Los Angeles restaurant in 2022 to rob and kill hip-hop star PnB Rock.
“I understand you’re trying to put together your story,” Freddie Trone told a prosecutor during cross-examination in a Compton, California, courtroom at his trial Monday before closing arguments began. “I never had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t there. I didn’t tell nobody to do nothing. I didn’t hand nobody no gun.”
Trone had not been asked directly about his guilt, but had grown increasingly frustrated with questioning from Deputy District Attorney Timothy Richardson and heatedly volunteered the denial.
“How is this relevant to trying to tie me to something?” Trone asked the prosecutor at one point. He later shouted, “for the fifth time!” after answering a question about encountering his son after the shooting.
The defense made the rare and risky move of putting the Trone, 42, on the stand as he faces one charge of murder, two counts of second-degree robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery. He was the only defense witness called.
Trone acknowledged on the stand that the crimes were “heinous” and that his son, who is in the juvenile justice system and has not been tried, was “dangerous.”
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 repeatedly spoke with extra emphasis, as if in disbelief, when he said to jurors, “his son” or “his biological son.”
The Associated Press does not typically name minors who are accused of crimes.
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.
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.”
“A robbery is inherently dangerous,” Richardson said. “It’s up close and personal.”
The prosecutor then walked the jurors through the events of Sept. 12, 2022, replaying clips from the surveillance video the case heavily relied on.
Video showed Trone in the parking lot of a South Los Angeles Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles 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 Trone’s friend and co-defendant, Tremont Jones, fist-bumping Allen, whose arm had valuable pieces of jewelry he had.
“Was there motive? Yes!” Richardson said. “Half-a-million dollar worth!”
Prosecutors allege Jones tipped Trone off to the rapper’s presence and his jewelry. Jones has pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy.
Richardson showed video from minutes later of Trone’s Buick Enclave dropping off the boy near the restaurant and picking him up a few minutes later. Trone testified that his keys and Buick had disappeared before the shooting and he later found his son and the SUV with three other young men.
The defense, which gives its closing on Tuesday, plans to argue that video of the teen getting in and out of the back of the car rather than the passenger seat was evidence that there were several people inside.
The prosecutor also showed video from inside the restaurant during the shooting, the actual killing is behind a dividing wall and mostly not visible.
Allen’s mother, who was in the audience often wiping away tears, looked away during the video and left the courtroom before Richardson showed jurors a medical examiner’s photo of Allen after his death.
Witnesses testified that a person in a ski mask walked up, demanded their jewelry, then fired. Allen was shot once in the chest and twice in the back as he fell to the ground. A gun was found on him, but prosecutors say it was not pulled or fired.
Trone’s attorney, Winston McKesson, plans to emphasize that the prosecution is overreaching, with no evidence of communications between Trone and Jones where they discuss Allen or a robbery, no evidence Trone was prompted to be at the scene, and no video showing he was driver of the Buick at the time of the killing. He also plans to stress that no jewelry or gun has been recovered.
He criticized prosecutors for how quickly and harshly their charges against Trone came, without investigators exploring more possibilities.
“Had my defendant not lived in this area, had he not been African American, there’s no way they would’ve filed murder charges,” McKesson said outside court Monday. “Had this crime been in Beverly Hills, he would’ve been charged as an accessory after the fact and that’s it.”
