COMPTON, Calif. (AP) — Called to testify at his trial, a man vehemently denied Monday that he sent his 17-year-old son into a South Los Angeles restaurant 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 courtroom. “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.
The 42-year-old defendant, who took the stand Friday and continued his testimony Monday, is charged with one count of murder, two counts of second-degree robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery.
Richardson’s questions brought long pauses and bursts of anger as he asked Trone about the minutiae of his movements after the shooting and asked him to name the people who were with him, which he mostly refused to do.
“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 being asked where he drove his car and encountered his son.
Prosecutors say the boy, who is in the custody of the juvenile system and has not been tried, was acting on his father's instructions when he walked into Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles on Sept. 12, 2022, and robbed and shot the Philadelphia rapper, who was eating there with his girlfriend. Defense lawyers say Trone was only an accessory after the fact who was trying to help his son.
PnB Rock was best known for his 2016 hit “Selfish” and for making guest appearances on other artists’ songs such as YFN Lucci’s “Everyday We Lit” and Ed Sheeran’s “Cross Me” with Chance the Rapper.
Defendants testifying in criminal trials is rare and risky. They can invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid it. Their attorneys usually advise them to do so even if they want to testify, for fear they might slip up or come across as guilty.
Trone testified that he did not know he was a suspect for several days after the killing. Richardson asked why he fled to Las Vegas, where he was arrested more than two weeks later.
“I was all over the news. I didn't know what to do, turn myself in without a lawyer?” Trone said, his voice rising. He said he decided to go to Vegas to “get myself some money so I can get a lawyer to help fight this.”
Closing arguments in the two-week trial are expected to start Monday afternoon.
Both sides agree that the teen son, who has been found temporarily incompetent to stand trial, shot PnB Rock, whose legal name is Rakim Allen, once in the chest and twice in the back.
At issue in the trial is whether Trone became involved before or after the killing.
The Associated Press does not generally name minors accused of crimes.
The trial in PnB Rock's killing, not held in the downtown courthouse that is home to most high-profile proceedings, has attracted little attention. The gallery has remained nearly empty, with Rolling Stone the only media outlet giving it regular coverage.
A co-defendant who is not charged with murder, 46-year-old Tremont Jones, has pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery, one count of conspiracy, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Prosecutors allege Jones tipped off Trone to the rapper's location, and they showed jurors surveillance video of the two men talking outside the restaurant minutes before the killing.
Allen's fiancee, Stephanie Sibounheuang, was the trial's most dramatic witness. She said she had a “bad feeling” about the situation before they walked into the restaurant. The couple was set to fly home to Atlanta later in the day.
She tearfully testified that the two had just gotten their food at Roscoe's when the ski-masked shooter appeared, put his gun in Allen's face, and demanded all the couple's jewelry, which she said was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Sibounheuang said he seemed like a kid "who didn’t know what he was doing.”
She said the shooter then fired on Allen, who pushed her out of the way and shielded her to protect her as he was shot. She called him a “hero" who saved her life.
The masked shooter then collected a watch and other jewelry off Allen.
