Los Angeles (AP) – A Colombe Rocky from $ AP of the defense table in the arms of Rihanna On Tuesday, a clerk read the non-guilty verdict during his trial for two criminal assault leaders with a semi-automatic firearm.
The audience hall of Los Angeles, full of fans of the hip-hop interpreter and her singing superstar partner, exploded by screaming with Glee while Rocky and Rihanna kissed and sobbed.
After a three -week trial, the jury deliberated for only three hours to make the verdict that spared Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, a prison sentence that could have taken place more than two decades.
“Thank you all for saving my life,” he told the jurors when leaving the Los Angeles courtroom.
In the middle of chaos, it took the clerk for a while to read the second non -guilty verdict, although it is very unlikely that the jury is divided on the counts.
On the eve of the trial, Rocky refused an offer of prosecution of only six months in prison, as well as probation and other conditions, if he pleads guilty to a charge.
Insisting on his innocence, Rocky decided to play that a jury would feel the same thing. He paid. The jurors at least estimated that there was a reasonable doubt about his guilt.
Rihanna cried and kissed the defense lawyers, just like Rocky. She Assisted at the sporadically trial And brought the couple’s two sons – Rza Athelston Mayers, 2 years old, and Riot Mayers, 1, for some of the closing arguments.
The verdict came at the height of Rocky’s fame, if not the ultimate in his musical career. The triple nominated for the Grammys, the fashion tycoon and the actor has a record year in preparation and can now turn to him without the threat of prison that hangs over him. It is planned to make the headlines of the Rolling Loud Music Festival in March; He is one of the co -presidents of celebrities of the biggest fashion evening, the Met Galain May; And he plays with Denzel Washington in the film by director Spike Lee “Highst 2 Lowst”, which takes place at the start of the summer.
Prosecutors and their witnesses said he was strengthening with A former friend, an $ ap relli, With whom he was in a crew called $ AP MOB from high school. They said that the two men met in Hollywood on November 6, 2021, and after a fight, Rocky pulled the pistol and shot Rell twice, who said that one of the shots had struck him point but was not seriously injured.
Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said in his closing argument that Relli is “an angry pathological liar” who “committed a perjury over and over and over”.
Lawyers and Rocky witnesses they called Sgest Rocky Pull a propeller gun This only draws whites, which he had been carrying for security since he took it in a clip of several months earlier. They said he had shot him as a warning because Rell was attacking another member of their crew.
The jurors were informed that, despite three years of passage from the incident, no one told the bogus weapon to the authorities until the start of the jury selection at the trial.
They were also informed that if they saw that Rocky reasonably believed that he or one of the two friends with him that night was imminent injury and that he used a reasonable force, they could judge the defendant not guilty.
He was not immediately clear if they made the verdict because they thought he was actually wearing a propeller pistol or that he had acted in self -defense. They did not have to agree on their reasoning, nor explain it outside the jury room. They just had to reach the same conclusion.
Rocky chose not to testify in his own defense.
In his closing argument, the deputy prosecutor of district John Lewin urged jurors not to be influenced by the aspects of celebrities or family of the case, and suggested to Rihanna to bring the children to arguments of closing closing was an attempt to manipulate the jury.
“You are not allowed to think about how it could affect Rihanna and her children,” said the prosecutor. “We are all responsible for our own actions in the world.”
After the verdict, Tacopina said outside the courthouse that “Rocky did not want her to here, I will tell you”.
He said Rocky “wanted to protect her from this. Wild horses could not keep it away.
“I cannot imagine that it was anything but an experience that changes life,” he said.
