More proof Hollywood is a small town ... the first witness at A$AP Rocky's gun trial was an LAPD officer, who just so happens to be the son of Erika Jayne.
via: Page Six
Thomas “Tommy” Zizzo Jr., whom the Bravo star welcomed with her first husband, Thomas Zizzo Sr., was called to the stand as one of the cops who responded to the alleged shooting.
He told the court what he saw when he arrived on the scene, outside of a hotel in 2021, according to TMZ.
While Tommy’s mother is a Bravolebrity, he has never made an appearance on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” and he prefers to keep it that way.
“He didn’t choose this life — I chose this life — and we try and protect him,” Jayne told Andy Cohen in 2020 about her son staying out of the spotlight.
“I don’t care if he’s an adult and he carries a gun and a badge. At the end of the day, he’s still my boy. He’s a very fine young man, and I’m super proud.”
A$AP Rocky’s trial began earlier this week after the rapper turned down a plea deal that offered him 180 days behind bars, a seven-year suspended sentence, three years probation and 500 hours of community service.
He also would have had to enter a guilty plea to the most serious of the two felonies for which he was charged — assault with a semiautomatic weapon.
The musician felt the deal would have cost him his livelihood, a source told TMZ.
“This would effectively end his career because he would lose all of his endorsement contracts, including Gucci, Puma, the Met Gala and, most important, he would not be able to tour and his career would be over,” the source told TMZ. “They would have him under their thumb for over 8 years.”
The “A$AP Forever” hitmaker is charged with firing a gun at a former friend A$AP Relli and is facing a 24-year prison sentence if convicted.
He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
In other A$AP Rocky news, his case has come under fire by Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton over the looming criminal trial of rapper A$AP Rocky. Sharpton has suggested that racial bias may be at play, zeroing in on what he views as a critical issue: the fairness of the jury selection process.
On Jan. 23, it was reported that seven women and five men were selected to be jururs in A$AP Rocky’s trial. Surprisingly, despite Los Angeles’ racial make up, none of the selected jurors were Black. The chosen jurors are white, Asian and Hispanic and the four women selected as alternates jurors were also not Black.
In a powerful statement on Wednesday, Jan. 22, Sharpton and the Los Angeles chapter of the National Action Network drew attention to a stark racial disparity in the jury pool of the rapper’s trial.
The caption read, “Out of one hundred and six (106) people called to potentially sit as jurors in A$AP Rocky’s trial in Los Angeles, there are only 4 black people.”
The National Action Network founder stressed in part that Rocky “deserves to be judged fairly by his peers, as is his Constitutional right.”
He further described in the length statement the current jury composition as “absolutely ridiculous” and declared that something appears “very wrong with the system.”
via: ABC News
Rocky turned down a prosecution plea offer of 180 days in jail to risk years in prison if the jurors find him guilty of two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyer says he committed no crime.
He opted instead to risk trial on two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, charges that with conviction bring a penalty of up to 24 years in prison.
It took the two sides 2 1/2 days to pick the jurors from a pool of more than a hundred candidates who packed into a downtown LA courtroom. Those chosen include a woman who is a podcast editor and actor, and a man who has worked for more than 20 years at Trader Joe’s.
Many were excused for cause, others sent away by one of the two sides. Each had 10 jurors they could excuse without a reason. The defense used seven of their challenges, the prosecution just two.
One man questioned Thursday works as a civilian with the Los Angeles Police Department and has extensive ties to law enforcement including a cousin who was on the case’s witness list but is not expected to be called.
After the judge declined to dismiss him for cause, Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina took him off the jury.
“Here’s a shocker, we’re going to thank and excuse juror number 27.”
Attitudes toward police were a common topic during jury selection. In a heated moment, Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold, a former sheriff’s deputy, questioned those who said they mistrusted police, nearly debating with some of them.
He asked one woman, a speech pathologist, whether he should mistrust all speech pathologists based on his bad experience with one.
When another woman brought up police corruption, Arnold demanded she “tell me about the documented corruption at LAPD that you must’ve either read about or heard.”
When she brought up the Rodney King case, he asked, “You are going to hold against current police something that happened before they were born?”
Many questions were about the fame of both Rocky and especially Rihanna, his longtime life partner and the mother of his two toddler children. She was not in court Thursday, and it’s not certain whether she will show up during the trial.
“What if Rihanna comes here to court, is it going to be hard for you to look over there, and see the defendant’s family, and deliver a guilty verdict?” Deputy District Attorney John Lewin asked one woman.
After a long pause, she said “yes.”
Rocky is accused of firing three or four shots at Terell Ephron, a friend from his teenage years, on the streets of Hollywood in 2021. Ephron said the shots grazed his knuckles. Rocky has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers say he wasn’t even holding a real gun, but a starter pistol he used as a prop.
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