A jury was handed the case Tuesday against a man who is charged along with his then-17-year-old son in the robbery and shooting death of rapper PnB Rock at a South Los Angeles restaurant.
Deputy District Attorney Timothy Richardson told a Compton jury that Freddie Lee Trone “sent his son out on a coordinated act to rob watches, rings and chains off of a person,” while defense attorney Winston Kevin McKesson countered that Trone’s teenage son acted independently from his dad and that the “only conclusion that is consistent with justice is that Freddie Trone is not guilty of these charges.”
The jury spent about 1 1/2 hours discussing the case and is due back in court Wednesday to continue its deliberations.
Trone, now 41, and his son — whose case is currently in juvenile court while he undergoes treatment to determine if he can be found mentally competent to stand trial — are charged with one count each of murder and conspiracy to commit robbery, along with two counts of second-degree robbery involving the 30-year-old rapper and his fiance.
The musician, whose real name is Rakim Allen, was shot once in the chest and two times in the back by an assailant in a ski mask who demanded the jewelry and threatened to kill the rapper’s girlfriend while the two were eating lunch on Sept. 12, 2022, with his fiance at Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles, at 106 W. Manchester Ave., near Main Street.
The prosecutor told jurors that the motive for the crime was “about a half a million dollars worth of jewelry,” arguing that Trone drove his son to and from the restaurant but never set foot inside the business himself while the rapper was there.
A third defendant, Tremont Jones, 46, is charged with robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery, but is not charged with murder. The prosecution alleges that Jones fist-bumped the rapper at the restaurant and then passed information on to Trone about what jewelry the entertainer was wearing.
Richardson noted “how difficult it is to accept that a father would put his son up to this.”
The prosecutor told jurors that Trone, his son and Jones had “coordinated actions” that were “not a coincidence.”
In testimony Monday in his own defense, Trone told jurors, “I wasn’t there. I didn’t tell nobody to do nothing.”
Trone told jurors that his son and his own vehicle went missing, and that he subsequently found his son in the vehicle with three other “youngsters.”
Trone’s attorney said there was “no evidence of a conspiracy” to rob the rapper and accused investigators of making up their minds about “who they thought was guilty” and “looking only for evidence that pointed to guilt” while ignoring anything that pointed to his client’s innocence.
“You have no evidence that my client planned anything,” McKesson said, telling jurors that the prosecution’s goal was to get them to “dislike” Trone.
The defense attorney told reporters outside court that he believes his client wouldn’t have been charged with murder had he not lived in the area and been African-American, saying that he would have been charged with being an accessory after the fact if it had happened in Beverly Hills.
Jones’ attorney called the case “so thin,” saying that the idea that his client was aiding and abetting the crime “doesn’t hold.”
Trone’s son was arrested in September 2022 and his father was subsequently arrested in Las Vegas and returned to Los Angeles County in October 2022, while Jones was taken into custody in May 2023, according to jail records.