After just over two days of deliberations, a federal jury on Wednesday convicted six reputed gang members of the brazen killing of rapper FBG Duck on the Gold Coast.
Duck’s mother LaSheena Weekly cried and hugged family members as the verdict was read around 12:35 p.m., ending a murder trial 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 on Aug. 4, 2020. His girlfriend and another man were wounded in the attack.
Prosecutors tied the shooting to a 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 was Dayvon Bennett, an O Block leader prosecutors said had placed a bounty on Duck before being shot to death months later.
After following all the twists and turns of the trial, LaSheena Weekly said she could finally find some closure.
“Knowing that they will not do that to another family brings me comfort, knowing they will not terrorize nobody else,” she said. “They’re done, the whole crew. O Block and everything of it is done.”
She added: “I could never want another mother to feel like this, to see their child shot down in the street like a dog. They had FBG Duck death parties. That’s how much it meant to them.”
On Wednesday, she and her loved ones said they were planning a much different celebration — “a justice for Duck party.”
‘People have the right to go about their lives ... free from violence’
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 that the defendants carried out the attack to maintain or increase their clout with the gang faction.
Marcus “Muwop” Smart, 24, Christopher “C Thang” Thomas, 24, Kenneth “Kenny Mac” Roberson, 30, Charles “C Murda” Liggins, 32, Tacarlos “Los” Offerd, 32, and Ralph “Teezy” Turpin, 34, 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 would 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.”
A hail of bullets in broad daylight
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, who prosecutors said was one of the shooters and 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.
After jury selection began Oct. 10, the trial proceeded in fits and starts. All the while, it played out on YouTube channels that highlighted the incendiary testimony of two gangbangers-turned-bloggers who sparred with defense attorneys and created a circus-like atmosphere in the courtroom.
U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold rebuffed a mistrial motion stemming from an FBI agent’s testimony about witness retaliation but hasn’t ruled on a call for a mistrial tied 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. All face mandatory life sentences.
