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A$AP Rocky's accuser says he was stunned and furious when his old friend pulled a gun on him

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A$AP Rocky's accuser says he was stunned and furious when his old friend pulled a gun on him
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A$AP Rocky's accuser says he was stunned and furious when his old friend pulled a gun on him

2025-01-29 09:08 Last Updated At:09:11

A$AP Rocky's accuser, former friend and the key witness at his trial testified Tuesday that their relationship had been fraying for years, but he was “furious” and flabbergasted when Rocky pulled a gun on him on the streets of Hollywood.

“I told him to use it. Because mentally I couldn’t believe it," said the man who goes by A$AP Relli, with his old friend staring at him intently from the defense table. “I physically could not believe there was a gun in my face. That was the breaking point for me.”

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Defense attorney Joe Tacopina listens to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during the trial of his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Defense attorney Joe Tacopina listens to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during the trial of his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec makes his opening remarks as defense attorney Joe Tacopina, center, and his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, right, listen in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec makes his opening remarks as defense attorney Joe Tacopina, center, and his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, right, listen in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, listens to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in his trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, listens to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in his trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Judge Mark S. Arnold speaks to attorneys before opening remarks in the trial of Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Judge Mark S. Arnold speaks to attorneys before opening remarks in the trial of Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, and his attorney Joe Tacopina listen to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, and his attorney Joe Tacopina listen to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, lower right, frowns while listening to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during his trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, lower right, frowns while listening to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during his trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Grammy-nominated rapper A$AP Rocky, center, facing two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm after allegedly shooting at a former friend in 2021, arrives at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Grammy-nominated rapper A$AP Rocky, center, facing two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm after allegedly shooting at a former friend in 2021, arrives at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, and his attorney Joe Tacopina listen to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, and his attorney Joe Tacopina listen to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

The court day ended with a cliffhanger, just as Relli was about to describe the moment when Rocky allegedly fired at him.

Rocky, the hip-hop star, fashion mogul and longtime and partner of Rihanna, has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm for allegedly firing at Relli.

“He’s famous,” Relli told the jury Tuesday. “I’m nobody.”

Relli, whose legal name is Terell Ephron, described how he and Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, were part of the same collective of creators and aspiring entrepreneurs at a New York high school who called themselves A$AP — which stands for Always Strive and Prosper, but can mean many things.

They remained close for years, as Rocky’s star rose, and Relli got into music management.

Relli said he and Rocky were like brothers, and saw each other every day, “up until he got famous." Then, he said, he didn't have time for his friend.

“I mean it’s always been like that. It’s really hard having a relationship with Rocky, he lies a lot,” Relli testified. “I called him Mr. Six Month Man. I would see him every six months."

But Relli said the last thing he wanted to do was to fight someone as prominent as Rocky, because his career “would be over. Literally over. You don’t have a career.”

His testimony was quiet and reluctant at first.

“I got anxiety,” he said at one point.

But he grew louder and took on a more forceful tone as he described the run-up to the confrontation.

He said he overheard Rocky slam him with a series of slurs and swear words while he rode in an SUV with a mutual friend the day before. It was over speaker phone, which Rocky didn't seem to know.

He read texts from Rocky sent on the day of the incident, Nov. 6, 2021.

“Where you at?, Let’s get to it," one read.

“I had kind of an idea that he wanted to fight or something, just argue or something," Relli said.

The two decided on a meetup and Relli said he thought they would argue but reconcile. He said Rocky seemed to have other ideas. They met along with two of their A$AP crew members next to a parking garage across from the W Hotel.

He said Rocky was shouting obscenities at him from afar before they even reached each other, and immediately grabbed him violently, as one of their friends started to intervene.

When Rocky stepped back, he pulled the semiautomatic handgun out of his waistband and pointed it closely at Relli's head and stomach, Relli testified.

When he saw the pistol, he said he asked Rocky, "What are you doing with a gun?”

Relli returns to the stand Wednesday, when he'll be expected to describe the moment the alleged shots were fired. He'll then face what's likely to be a fierce cross-examination from Rocky's attorneys.

Prosecutors say Rocky fired two shots at Relli, who said previously that bullets grazed his knuckles.

The defense argues Relli was the aggressor, and Rocky fired a starter pistol to break up a fight between him and another member of their crew. They said Rocky carried the pistol, which only shoots blanks, for security.

Before the jury was brought in, the defense revealed that they do not have the pistol.

“Does the prop gun exist?” Judge Matthew Arnold asked.

“The prop gun did exist,” Rocky's lawyer Joe Tacopina said. “It does not now. We don’t have it.”

The defense said in its opening statement that Relli was acting so fearlessly because he knew Rocky carried phony guns.

Relli testified that he had never heard of such a thing, and he didn't know Rocky to carry guns of any kind.

“He's got a lot of security,” he said.

Rocky's lawyers said Relli, who has also filed a civil lawsuit, is driven by “ jealousy, lies and greed " and fabricated large parts of the story to get money.

Earlier Tuesday, the defense cross-examined a police officer who responded to reports of a shooting about the absence of evidence at the scene.

“There was no sign of a shooting?" Tacopina asked.

“No,” said Sgt. Thomas Zizzo.

“No blood?”

“No.”

“No bullet holes?”

“No.”

No shell casings?

“No.”

“No physical evidence that a shooting happened at all?”

“No.”

Two days after the shooting, Relli himself brought two shell casings to police that he said he had found at the scene after seven police officers searched the scene and found nothing.

Zizzo is the son of Erika Jayne, former star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."

Rihanna, Rocky's longtime partner and the mother of their two toddler sons, was not in court. Rocky's lawyers said an appearance is unlikely but possible.

Defense attorney Joe Tacopina listens to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during the trial of his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Defense attorney Joe Tacopina listens to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during the trial of his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec makes his opening remarks as defense attorney Joe Tacopina, center, and his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, right, listen in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec makes his opening remarks as defense attorney Joe Tacopina, center, and his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, right, listen in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, listens to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in his trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, listens to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in his trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Judge Mark S. Arnold speaks to attorneys before opening remarks in the trial of Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Judge Mark S. Arnold speaks to attorneys before opening remarks in the trial of Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, and his attorney Joe Tacopina listen to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, and his attorney Joe Tacopina listen to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, lower right, frowns while listening to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during his trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, lower right, frowns while listening to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during his trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Grammy-nominated rapper A$AP Rocky, center, facing two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm after allegedly shooting at a former friend in 2021, arrives at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Grammy-nominated rapper A$AP Rocky, center, facing two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm after allegedly shooting at a former friend in 2021, arrives at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, and his attorney Joe Tacopina listen to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, and his attorney Joe Tacopina listen to opening remarks by the prosecuting attorney in Mayers' trial at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Wednesday that court rulings going against the Trump administration are coming from “judicial activists” on the bench whose decisions amount to a "constitutional crisis.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made the comments as she pushed back against critics of Republican President Donald Trump's expansive actions.

“We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law," Leavitt said.

Trump's moves in the first weeks of his second term to remark the federal government and fulfill his campaign promises have been met with more than 50 lawsuits. Judges have blocked, at least temporarily, his effort to end birthright citizenship, permit access to Treasury Department records by billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and roll out a mass deferred resignation plan for federal workers.

“This is part of a larger, concerted effort by Democrat activists, and nothing more than the continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump,” Leavitt said, referring to Trump's personal legal challenges, including the criminal trial in New York in which he was convicted last year.

Judicial oversight is a fundamental pillar of American democracy, which is based on the separation of powers.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who has been given far-reaching powers by Trump to shrink the federal government, has posted on social media that judges who rule against the administration should be impeached.

“A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!” Musk wrote about the judge in the Treasury Department case. Vice President JD Vance said Sunday on X, “ If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

As court cases pile up, questions have arisen about whether Trump, pushing to expand the limits of presidential power, would comply with court rulings.

Trump on Tuesday said he would, but suggested he would consider some kind of response to the judges and called their actions a “violation.”

“It seems hard to believe that a judge could say, ‘We don’t want you to do that.’ So maybe we have to look at the judges because that’s very serious, I think it’s a very serious violation," Trump said.

Leavitt made clear that Trump's team will also "seek every legal remedy to ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure President Trump’s policies can be enacted,” she said.

Price reported from New York.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a briefing at the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a briefing at the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a briefing at the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a briefing at the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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