It only took the jury six hours over two days to find 32-year-old Eric R. Holder, Jr. guilty of first-degree murder in the 2019 shooting of Nipsey Hussle.
A jury in Los Angeles County also found him guilty of two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter for the gunfire that hit other people at the scene.
During the trial, his lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Aaron Jansen, admitted that Holder shot Hussle, 33, whose real name was Ermias Asghedom, but argued for a lesser verdict of voluntary manslaughter.
In an email to the Associated Press, Jansen said he was “deeply disappointed” in the verdict, adding, “It was always going to be tough given the high profile circumstances surrounding the case.”
While he and Holder were grateful that the jury agreed that the attempted murder counts were overcharged, the plan for them both is to appeal the murder conviction.
Most of the jury deliberations took last Friday, and they promptly came to their unanimous decision Wednesday, briefly reconvening after a four-day break.
“We are both proud, and I am a little relieved that the verdict came in a complete, absolute agreement with the charges that Eric Holder murdered Ermias Asghedom in cold blood,” Deputy District Attorney John McKinney said outside the courtroom.
“We hope that today is a day in which the Asghedom family and the friends and fans of Nipsey Hussle around the world will find some measure of closure.”
Hussle, who had risen to pop culture prominence in the years leading up to his murder, had shown himself to be a bastion of hope for his community in Crenshaw and was a staunch supporter of the independent grind of which he became known.
Upon the judge reading the verdict, there were no relatives or colleagues of Nipsey’s in the room, nor did any attend the trial.
Holder is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 15, where he could face 25 years to life in prison.