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.”
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)
PRAGUE (AP) — The head of NATO's military committee said Saturday that Ukraine has the solid legal and military right to strike deep inside Russia to gain combat advantage — reflecting the beliefs of a number of U.S. allies — even as the Biden administration balks at allowing Kyiv to do so using American-made weapons.
“Every nation that is attacked has the right to defend itself. And that right doesn’t stop at the border of your own nation,” said Adm. Rob Bauer, speaking at the close of the committee's annual meeting, also attended by U.S. Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Bauer, of Netherlands, also added that nations have the sovereign right to put limits on the weapons they send to Ukraine. But, standing next to him at a press briefing, Lt. Gen. Karel Řehka, chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, made it clear his nation places no such weapons restrictions on Kyiv.
“We believe that the Ukrainians should decide themselves how to use it,” Řehka said.
Their comments came as U.S. President Joe Biden is weighing whether to allow Ukraine to use American-provided long-range weapons to hit deep into Russia. And they hint at the divisions over the issue.
Biden met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday, after this week’s visit to Kyiv by their top diplomats, who came under fresh pressure to loosen weapons restrictions. U.S. officials familiar with discussions said they believed Starmer was seeking Biden’s approval to allow Ukraine to use British Storm Shadow missiles for expanded strikes in Russia.
Biden’s approval may be needed because Storm Shadow components are made in the U.S. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share the status of private conversations, said they believed Biden would be amenable, but there has been no decision announced yet.
Providing additional support and training for Ukraine was a key topic at the NATO chiefs’ meeting, but it wasn't clear Saturday if the debate over the U.S. restrictions was discussed.
Many of the European nations have been vigorously supportive of Ukraine in part because they worry about being the next victim of an empowered Russia.
At the opening of the meeting, Czech Republic President Petr Pavel broadly urged the military chiefs gathered in the room to be ”bold and open in articulating your assessments and recommendations. The rounder and the softer they are, the less they will be understood by the political level.”
The allies, he said, must “take the right steps and the right decisions to protect our countries and our way of life.”
The military leaders routinely develop plans and recommendations that are then sent to the civilian NATO defense secretaries for discussion and then on to the nations' leaders in the alliance.
The U.S. allows Ukraine to use American-provided weapons in cross-border strikes to counter attacks by Russian forces. But it doesn’t allow Kyiv to fire long-range missiles, such as the ATACMS, deep into Russia. The U.S. has argued that Ukraine has drones that can strike far and should use ATACMS judiciously because they only have a limited number.
Ukraine has increased its pleas with Washington to lift the restrictions, particularly as winter looms and Kyiv worries about Russian gains during the colder months.
“You want to weaken the enemy that attacks you in order to not only fight the arrows that come your way, but also attack the archer that is, as we see, very often operating from Russia proper into Ukraine,” said Bauer. “So militarily, there’s a good reason to do that, to weaken the enemy, to weaken its logistic lines, fuel, ammunition that comes to the front. That is what you want to stop, if at all possible.”
Brown, for his part, told reporters traveling with him to the meeting that the U.S. policy on long-range weapons remains in place.
But, he added, “by the same token, what we want to do is — regardless of that policy — we want to continue to make Ukraine successful with the capabilities that have been provided” by the U.S. and other nations in the coalition, as well as the weapons Kyiv has been able to build itself.
“They’ve proven themselves fairly effective in building out uncrewed aerial vehicles, in building out drones,” Brown told reporters traveling with him to meetings in Europe.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has made similar points, arguing that one weapons system won't determine success in the war.
“There are a number of things that go into the overall equation as to whether or not you know you want to provide one capability or another," Austin said Friday. “There is no silver bullet when it comes to things like this.”
He also noted that Ukraine has already been able to strike inside Russia with its own internally produced systems, including drones.
FILE - Rescuers search for victims in an apartment building destroyed by Russian missile attack in centre Lviv, Western Ukraine, Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mykola Tys, File)
FILE - NATO's Chair of the Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer listens during the plenary session of the Seoul Defense Dialogue in Seoul, South Korea, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)
