An attorney and prosecutor in ASAP Rocky’s assault trial nearly came to blows in court this week.
Video footage taken on Thursday captured Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina and Deputy District Attorney John Lewin arguing loudly during closing remarks before being told to stop by Judge Mark Arnold.
It started when Lewin, who, according to the judge, objected 17 times during Tacopina’s closing, became upset when Tacopina mentioned something said about him in the appeals court.
“Your honor, one more thing out of him and we air out everything that’s happened in this case!” said Lewin. “He might want to stop!”
Tacopina responded argumentatively, saying “Ooh, I’m so threatened by you.” Matching his energy, Lewin let Tacopina know that he shouldn’t provoke him. “Yeah, you should be, Joe,” added Lewin. “You should be.”
In the video, the dialogue gets hard to understand because people are talking over each other — but one word that can be clearly heard is “Liar.”
Soon after, the judge, clearly fed up with both Tacopina and Lewin’s actions, called for the kerfuffle to be over. “Stop it!” Arnold yelled. “Knock if off!”
The closing remarks in Rocky’s case featured both contrasting arguments about what happened on the night that he’s accused of firing at ASAP Relli on a Hollywood street in 2021.
“Was it a real gun or was it a fake gun?” Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec said. “Nothing else is in dispute.” While he argued that Rocky was undeniably guilty of two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, the defense maintains that the gun was a prop that only fired blanks that the rapper took from security months earlier.
Tacopina called Relli “an angry pathological liar” who “committed perjury again and again and again and again.”
The jury is currently deliberating for a verdict.
