CHICAGO — Attorneys for Chicago rapper Lil Durk have asked that his federal murder-for-hire indictment in Los Angeles be dismissed, alleging that a series of threats made against the judge and lead prosecutor in the case was improperly withheld from the defense.

The motion to disqualify was filed on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court. Attorneys for Lil Durk, born Durk Banks, allege prosecutors in the case waited several months before disclosing that U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Donahue and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello were the subjects of threats that were not shared with the defense until October.

The messages to Donahue and Yanniello mentioned Banks’ name and “contained explicit death threats, and invoked acts of mass destruction accompanied by sounds mimicking gunfire,” Banks’ attorneys wrote in a Nov. 13 motion seeking to dismiss the indictment.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, noted in a letter to Banks’ defense team that other credible threats to harm cooperating witnesses have been “made by individuals who invoked sympathy for the defendants.”

The threats allegedly coming from Banks’ associates were revealed ahead of a push by the U.S. attorney’s office to have an anonymous jury empaneled in the trial, which is currently scheduled to begin Jan. 20, court records show.

In addition to the threats against witnesses and government officials involved in the case, prosecutors have accused Banks, who is in jail awaiting trial, of repeatedly attempting to circumvent jail policies to communicate with associates, including by using other inmates’ PINs to make calls and by possessing a “contraband Apple Watch with cellular capabilities” that he later tried to destroy.

“Any threat will undermine the trial,” prosecutors wrote in a filing Monday seeking an anonymous jury. “Preventing the leaking of jurors’ personal identifying information is a paramount concern in a case where supporters have already made threats to a magistrate judge and a prosecutor.”

A hearing on the anonymous jury and other pretrial issues is set for Tuesday in Los Angeles before U.S. District Court Judge Michael Fitzgerald.

Banks’ lead attorney, Jonathan Brayman, declined Friday to comment on the case. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The threats to the judge and lead prosecutor occurred in February and April, respectively, and were referred to the FBI to investigate. But the threats were not disclosed to Banks’ defense until last month, his attorneys allege in court paperwork.

Banks’ attorneys pointed out that, despite the threats, Donahue continued to hear arguments and issue pre-trial rulings, including one last May, in which she denied a motion to release Banks from custody before the start of trial. Banks has remained in the Los Angeles federal lockup for more than a year.

“This concealment prevented defendants from seeking recusal, challenging the fairness of proceedings, or making informed strategic decisions,” Banks’ attorneys wrote. “The (prosecution’s) decision to conceal threats to the very judges presiding over this case — and to continue litigating before them for months — has infected the proceedings with an appearance, and a reality, of unfairness that cannot be ignored.”

In an exhibit attached to the motion, Banks’ attorneys made public a letter prosecutors sent last month to lawyers for all defendants. In that letter, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the disclosures were made in a timely fashion after the proper procedures were followed.

“The defense is not entitled to any internal communications within the U.S. Attorney’s Office bearing on the deliberative process in this case,” prosecutors wrote, adding that once the investigations into the threats were completed, the discovery was “promptly” turned over to the defense.

Prosecutors also said the defense was conflating the threats made to the judge and prosecutor with other, more credible threatening communications directed at “cooperating witnesses and their family members” in the case.

Banks, 33, was charged in October 2024 with paying five associates of his South Side rap consortium, Only the Family, to kill Quando Rondo — born Tyquian Terrel Bowman — in August 2022 in retaliation for the November 2020 shooting death of King Von, another Chicago drill rap artist and Banks’ close friend. Prosecutors allege Banks also offered “lucrative music opportunities” to those who were accused of taking part in the shooting. He pleaded not guilty the following month.

Bowman and his cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, 24, had pulled into a gas station in West Hollywood in Bowman’s black Cadillac Escalade when gunmen opened fire, according to the federal charges. Bowman was not injured, but Robinson was struck multiple times and killed.

Banks was arrested near a Florida airport in October 2024, hours after the indictment against his co-defendants was unsealed. Prosecutors allege that Banks purchased seats on three international flights shortly before his arrest.

In May 2025, a federal grand jury in California returned a new indictment that removed allegations that some of Lil Durk’s song lyrics referenced the August 2022 shooting.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for next week, and the trial is set to begin in early January 2026, court records show.

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