The third day of testimony in the assault trial of A$AP Rocky saw the defendant’s girlfriend — pop star Rihanna — show up in court Wednesday to watch the alleged victim tell of being shot at by the rapper/fashion designer on a Hollywood street corner.
“He grabbed me first,” said Terell Ephron, 36, formerly known as A$AP Relli, alleging that Rocky — whose real name is Rakim Mayers — pulled a gun from his waistband during a scuffle four years ago.
Ephron told the jury he did not believe Mayers would actually pull the trigger.
“I was not thinking straight at that moment,” he said and described how he was shot at twice, with a bullet grazing the knuckles of his left hand.
After the first shot, he said, “my hand felt hot.”
Mayers’ attorney, Joe Tacopina, maintains the weapon was a prop gun from a music video that was incapable of firing real ammunition.
Ephron testified that after the first shot he grabbed Illijah Ulanga, known as A$AP Illz, a member of Mayers’ A$AP Mob rap collective who was also at the scene, and used him as a shield.
“Illz was petrified,” Ephron testified. “He was screaming, `you literally could’ve gotten me killed.”’
After the first shot, the defendant was “running and shooting … trying to find a way to shoot (me),” Ephron said from the witness stand. But, he said, Illz was blocking a clear shot and both men dropped toward the ground.
Asked by Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec if he believed the weapon was a real gun or a prop pistol, Ephron replied, “It was a real gun. I was hit.”
The gun has never been located, according to attorneys.
After Mayers and friends ran away, Ephron said he walked up Hollywood Boulevard and then to Loews, the hotel where he was staying. He said he then met up with his girlfriend and at around 11 p.m. returned to the scene of the altercation — which had already been searched by seven police officers, according to previous testimony. Ephron said he discovered two shell casings on the street.
“So happens, I find (shell casings),” Ephron testified, adding that he took a picture of the cartridge casings where he found them and placed them in a paper bag.
Dressed in an all-black outfit, Rihanna was seated next to her partner’s mother in a section of the gallery reserved for Mayers’ family and friends during the unusually brief court day Wednesday.
The rapper’s trial opened Friday after Mayers rejected a plea deal that would have required him to plead guilty to one of two felony charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and serve 180 days in jail.
If convicted at trial of both counts as charged, he would face up to 24 years in prison, according to prosecutors.
Former talent manager Ephron told the downtown Los Angeles jury that since it became public that he had gone to police about the November 2021 shooting and charges were brought against Mayers, his career in hip-hop management was “done.”
“People labeled me a snitch,” Ephron testified. “As far as social media, I don’t have a presence anymore. The artists I was working with all turned on me because of the decisions I made … going to the police.”
He said he no longer works with anyone he once did business with.
“Nobody,” he said, explaining that his management company is now defunct and that he has cut ties with previous business partners.
The witness said the public didn’t know he was involved in the incident until another member of the A$AP rap crew posted that Ephron was a “snitch” who told police that Mayers had fired a gun at him.
Ephron filed a civil lawsuit for assault, battery and emotional distress against Mayers in August 2022.
In his opening statement Friday, Tacopina accused Ephron of being driven by “jealousy, lies and greed,” and alleged that he invented parts of his claims for cash.
A$AP Rocky was arrested in April 2022 upon returning to Los Angeles from a trip with Rihanna to her native Barbados. The couple have two children together.
Testimony is expected to resume Thursday, when Ephron will be questioned by Mayers’ attorneys.
Before Ephron was called to the stand for the first time Tuesday, Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Thomas Zizzo Jr. — son of Erika Jayne, former star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” — testified that seven police officers used flashlights to search the scene for evidence hours after the reported shooting, but came away empty handed.