A federal jury on Wednesday convicted six reputed gang members of the brazen killing of rapper FBG Duck in Illinois, according to reports.
Duck’s mother, LaSheena Weekly, cried and hugged family members as the verdict was read around 12:35 p.m., closing out a trial marred by delays and that had stretched more than three months.
“When stuff like that happens to a good person, regardless of what somebody else thinks of them, it ain’t gonna go unpunished,” she said in an interview.
Duck, whose real name is Carlton Weekly, was gunned down outside a luxury clothing store in the first block of East Oak Street in Chicago on Aug. 4, 2020. His girlfriend and another man were also wounded in the attack.
The feds tied the shooting to a brutal gang war between Duck’s Tookaville faction of the Gangster Disciples and the O Block set of the Black Disciples. The yearslong conflict was stoked by drill rap diss tracks between Duck and King Von, whose real name is Dayvon Bennett, an O Block leader who allegedly placed a bounty on Duck before being shot to death months later.
Prosecutors relied on a series of disreputable witnesses to testify about O Block’s inner workings and its lasting feud with Tookaville, which is also known as STL. Testimony showed that O Block collected dues and held regular meetings to discuss shootings and drug dealing, claims that were vital for prosecutors to prove O Block is a criminal enterprise and the defendants carried out the attack to maintain or increase their clout with the gang faction.
24-year-old Marcus “Muwop” Smart, 24-year-old Christopher “C Thang” Thomas, 30-year-old Kenneth “Kenny Mac” Roberson, 32-year-old Charles “C Murda” Liggins, 32-year-old Tacarlos “Los” Offerd, and 34-year-old Ralph “Teezy” Turpin were all found guilty of murder in aid of racketeering and conspiring to kill Duck.
Smart, Thomas, Roberson, Liggins and Offerd were also convicted of using a firearm during the commission of the murder, but their verdicts were split.
Liggins, an alleged gunman, and Roberson, an alleged getaway driver, were found guilty of shooting Duck’s girlfriend and using a gun in the attack, but they were acquitted on the same charges relating to the shooting of the other victim.
Smart, another alleged shooter, and Offerd, the second driver, were convicted of wounding that victim and using a gun in the shooting, but they were found not guilty of the counts related to Duck’s girlfriend.
Thomas, another alleged shooter, wasn’t convicted of any charges related to the two victims who survived.
Morris Pasqual, the acting U.S. attorney in Chicago, said his office will continue working with law enforcement “to prioritize combating the unacceptable level of gang violence in Chicago.”
“People have the right to go about their lives and walk the streets in safety — free from violence,” Pasqual said in a statement. “The jury’s verdicts today hold the six defendants accountable for a brutal murder that took the life of Carlton Weekly.”
Prosecutors said the afternoon shooting was set in motion when Turpin spotted Duck in a children’s clothing boutique on Oak Street and made a phone call that summoned two carloads of people to the swanky shopping district.
All the other defendants were identified from surveillance footage at Parkway Gardens, the sprawling apartment complex on the South Side that’s also known as O Block and allegedly serves as the gang faction’s power base. The two cars were tracked from Parkway Gardens to Oak Street using city surveillance cameras and license plate readers, showing they traveled in lockstep.
Duck was shot 16 times in less than 20 seconds. The barrage of gunfire outside the Dolce & Gabbana store also struck another shopper and Duck’s girlfriend, who tried shooting back using his gun.
Offerd returned his Ford Fusion to a suburban dealership shortly after the shooting and was picked up with Smart and Ezell Rawls, another alleged gunman who took his own life during the investigation. Police seized Roberson’s Chrysler 300 the following day and found a shell casing that matched ballistic evidence found at the scene.
Defense lawyers pointed to the scarcity of forensic evidence linking their clients to the scene of the shooting, and they criticized the identifications made from surveillance footage at Parkway Gardens while seizing on the poor video quality and skips in the footage.
Lawyers for Turpin and Roberson both hammered on the fact that their clients aren’t members of O Block. And Turpin’s lawyer, Patrick Boyle, argued there’s no clear evidence showing Turpin made that fateful phone call that drew the gunmen to the Gold Coast neighborhood that day, as prosecutors alleged.
While Judge Martha Pacold rebuffed a mistrial motion stemming from an FBI agent’s testimony about witness retaliation, she hasn’t ruled on a pending call for a mistrial that relates to a YouTuber’s removal from the courtroom.
Sentencing is set for Aug. 6 for Liggins; Aug. 8 for Roberson; Aug. 13 for Smart; Aug. 15 for Turpin; Sept. 4 for Offerd; and Sept. 17 for Thomas.
© Copyright RawNews1st
