A$AP Rocky's felony assault trial got underway Friday morning ... days after the Grammy-nominated rapper rejected a plea deal.
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00:00Well, it did not take long
00:02ASAP Rocky's trial began today and there were fireworks right away even before opening statements ASAP
00:10Walking into court this morning. That's him there, but his lawyer was pissed. Yes his lawyer Joe Takapina
00:16He feels he feels the prosecution sandbagged him. That's Joe standing right there jacket
00:21he was so angry because he said that the
00:25Prosecution withheld a very important ballistics report that showed these bullet casings could have come from a
00:34Semi-automatic weapon, which is really the core of the case that they're saying that he used a semi-automatic weapon to shoot
00:42ASAP rally
00:43Yeah
00:43and
00:44Joe Katau Kabina is saying this was a prop gun and
00:47The he should not be charged with assault with a firearm because a prop gun is not a firearm in that sense
00:52Joe had already said that that was gonna be part of their defense and now he gets hit with this ballistics report
00:58Well, the reports gonna get in. Yeah, the judge said I gotta say I watch this and the judge
01:06There was some friction between the judge and Joe Takapina going both ways
01:11So it was interesting. Yes. What's also interesting is how they could have avoided all of this
01:18If ASAP Rocky had accepted a plea deal that the prosecution offered
01:23But what we found out is that deal was a horrible deal at least in his eyes because it would have
01:29Completely torpedoed his career and it goes beyond the jail time
01:33We told you the other day that if he had accepted this plea deal
01:36He would have gotten about 180
01:38He would have been sentenced to 180 days in county jail, which would have been way less than half because of jail overcrowding, right?
01:43But now he is facing the potential if found guilty of up to 24 years in jail
01:49So in prison state prison, so the the additional part of this right which made this well
01:55There were two things going on
01:56but one is there were other parts of this supposed plea deal which included seven years of
02:03unsupervised probation three years of formal and
02:06500 hours of community service
02:08It would have made his it would have made it impossible for him to continue his career because of all sorts of reasons
02:15So they said nope, we're going to trial ASAP as a terrific lawyer joke at tech
02:20You know is a great criminal defense lawyer. They better be sure though. I mean, I understand that it would have ruined his career
02:26Let's not forget he is with a woman who's worth a billion dollars
02:30So money is not an issue for them
02:32But he better be certain that he's made the right decision because a couple decades in prison is a lot less
02:38Obviously, it's a lot worse than 180 day to jail sentence
02:41He'd be out in 40 probably and I understand it's gonna take a toll on his career if he would have accepted the deal
02:47But that's much better than again 20, you know
02:51What 15 years in prison when it's all said and done, but he also didn't want eight years hanging over
02:56It's that probably make one wrong move
02:59Exactly and we've seen other celebrities moving and over by that over again
03:04So and the other reason Joe Tacabena said they'd rejected it is and we put this on the website today
03:09He talked to me. He said a client's innocent my client's innocent and I'm gonna fight this thing. So so
03:16They are just starting opening statements right now to me. The wild card is you know what the wild card is the jury?
03:23No, and well two things the jury and
03:26Rihanna yeah, because now she's not there today for opening statements, which surprised me
03:32Yeah, I would have thought that that first day. Yep. Sort of like first impressions, right?
03:36You want her there to sort of charm the jury?
03:41But we're told she's not there today
03:43But from what we're hearing she's gonna be there. She will be there at some point next week. Hi, I'm Imani
03:49I'm from Atlanta and honestly, this really is a gamble because on one hand you take the plea deal
03:53You're basically ruining all your endorsements
03:56But then like you got the influence of Rihanna and I don't know anybody who isn't a Rihanna fan
04:00So this should be interesting how this all plays out. Honestly, I gotta tell you in closing what I would do
04:06And I'm sure I just have a feeling Joe's gonna do it
04:08I would say ladies and gentlemen of the jury
04:11Are you gonna convict this man and take him away from Rihanna and his children for?
04:18This this and this are you gonna do that as she sits there and you want to reinforce that?
04:23Well, I'm just telling you I I agree with you. Okay be the right place