Father of alleged shooter receives 31 years to life imprisonment

The Los Angeles A man who sent his 17-year-old son to carry out an armed robbery at a restaurant that left celebrated rapper PnB Rock dead was sentenced to 31 years to life in prison on Monday.

Freddie Trone, 42, appeared in a courtroom in Compton, California, to receive his sentence after a jury found him guilty of murder, two counts of robbery and a conspiracy charge last month following a nine-day trial. Jurors deliberated for less than four hours before unanimously deciding that Trone planned the brazen robbery of the rapper, whose real name was Rakim Allen, at Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles and acted as his son's getaway driver after the fatal shooting on Sept. 12, 2022.

During Monday's hearing, Trone began chatting with his lawyer and refused to look at the rapper's mother, Deannea Allen, when she was called to give her victim impact statement. The devastated mother tells Rolling Stone that she flew in from Pennsylvania to confront Trone and that his apparent indifference while his lawyer turned his back on her was like a slap in the face. “Her actions are now part of my trauma,” she says.

“I would like to address you, Mr. Trone, even if you speak [to your lawyer]”Deannea said in court, refusing to be silenced. “As a mother, I don't understand – and I've been trying for two years – I don't understand how a parent can put their child directly in danger. I just can't comprehend it. That one action had a ripple effect and ruined many lives.”

Deannea said the rapper's 10-year-old daughter, Milan, had asked to be present at the sentencing but suffered a “terrible” panic attack and was unable to board the plane. “This is what we're dealing with. She's suffering,” Deannea said. “Rakim was the shining light in our family. He was a star to us. … We're devastated. We're trying to live with it, but it's very hard.”

She said she hopes Trone will one day take responsibility for what happened. “I hope that as a mother you can empathize with my pain. I've lived through your son's life. He's had a terrible life. I shouldn't feel sorry for this young man, but I do. He has two parents, but he was in foster care. He's had a rough time. And I shouldn't feel sorry for him, but I do. Just as a mother. I just want you to put yourself in my shoes and in our family's shoes,” she said.

During the trial, jurors heard that the suspected teenage shooter, who was charged separately in juvenile court, sneaked into the restaurant wearing a ski mask and a “Fruity Pebbles” T-shirt and then opened fire on Allen and his fiancée, Stephanie Sibounheuang, just seconds after shouting, “If you don't give me the jewelry, I'll blow her head off.”

Sibounheuang described the horrific attack on the witness stand, saying Allen “threw” her under the table when the shots rang out. A forensic pathologist testified Allen was shot once in the chest and twice in the back.

Trone's co-defendant Tremont Jones, 46, was also sentenced on August 7. He was found guilty of two counts of robbery and conspiracy. Prosecutors claimed Jones was the one who tipped Trone off that the rapper had come to Roscoe's with Sibounheuang and half a million dollars worth of jewelry. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Monday.

Speaking by phone last month, Sibounheuang said she was “grateful” for the verdict. “I'm grateful that we were able to get justice so quickly,” she said. “I don't have to worry about who did it. I don't have to worry about where it came from. I know exactly where it came from, and I know justice will be done.”

Trone's defense attorney, Winston McKesson, had argued during the trial that the father was at the Roscoes' home minutes before the shooting, not to plan the robbery, as prosecutors claimed, but to “boost business for his cosmetics store” and to buy marijuana from Jones. He said Trone's son stole the keys to their car minutes later and then drove to the Roscoes' home without the father's knowledge to carry out the fatal shooting.

That short six-minute period between the time Trone left the Roscoe's parking lot at 1:14 p.m. that day and the time his Enclave was seen on the security camera returning to the crime scene was a major theme of the trial. Assistant District Attorney Timothy Richardson argued that it was during those six minutes that Trone armed his son with the semi-automatic weapon and the robbery plan.

In his final words to the jury, Richardson said the critical six minutes simply weren't enough for Trone's version of events. He argued that surveillance video from Trone's neighborhood Buick Enclave showed the vehicle's path, and a round trip to Trone's repair shop, several blocks away, would have been “impossible.”

“In six minutes, the defense wants you to believe that [the teen shooter] “He rounded up his guys, got a belt, jumped in his dad's car and drove back to the Roscoes,” Richardson argued. “Coincidence? No. Coordinated actions? Yes.”

Edwin Lovo served as chairman of the jury during the trial and said exclusively Rolling Stone that the jury turned its attention to surveillance video of the Buick Enclave as it left the scene. Trone testified in his defense that he was not in the car at the time and claimed he later found his son with three other young men in a nearby parking lot. Lovo said the jury “zoomed in” on the video of the fleeing vehicle and identified Trone in the driver's seat based on his clothing.

“We could clearly see it was him,” Lovo said. “There was someone in the car with a white shirt and frayed pants. It was the father who was driving the car. He was an accomplice. That led us to follow the verdict form and check all those boxes.” Lovo said it was a camera at a nearby church that captured a bird's eye view of the vehicle from the passenger side. He said jurors could see the driver's thigh and recognize the distinctive clothing Trone was wearing in various surveillance footage from earlier in the day.

As Rolling Stone As first reported, prosecutors used additional surveillance video to piece together a botched cover-up of the fatal shooting. They said Trone set fire to the Enclave a few blocks from his wife's house after the shooting. His wife told police Trone had burns on his forearms and legs consistent with arson and took him to medical care.

Jones, for his part, said he played no role in the alleged father-son robbery plot. His defense attorney, David Haas, argued that Jones was well known to the Roscoes, so the theory that he gave Trone a gun in the parking lot in front of cameras “makes no sense.” “What if Mr. Jones is just a weed dealer?” he asked the jury in his closing argument.

Allen's high-profile murder two years ago sent shockwaves through the hip-hop industry. The Philadelphia-born artist rose to stardom in 2016 with his triple-platinum single “Selfish.” That same year Rolling Stone named him a new artist you need to know. He rose to crossover fame with collaborations like his 2019 appearance on Ed Sheeran's “Cross Me.”

After the murder, Allen's fiancée faced a barrage of accusations that her Instagram post about her meal at Roscoe's that day led the shooter to her location. When Sibounheuang testified, the jury was shown her now-deleted post. It did not specify which Roscoe's she was at, only showing food. Meanwhile, Richardson testified during the trial that Allen and Sibounheuang received their food at 1:12 p.m. That means the Instagram post either coincided with or came after Trone's meeting with Jones in the restaurant's parking lot. Richardson argued that it was Jones seeing the rap artist's diamond-encrusted rings, necklaces and watches during their 12:31 p.m. fist-bump that set the robbery plan in motion, not the post. The jury agreed.

“We considered the Instagram post, but in terms of timing, it just wasn't plausible. Also, the picture only showed the plate of food. There was nothing of Rakim in the pictures, nothing of Stephanie, no jewelry, so the evidence from that particular post did not raise enough of a reasonable doubt,” said Lovo, the jury foreman.

In her harrowing testimony, Sibounheuang described first-hand how the hip-hop star pushed her out of the way to save her life. “He's a hero. [Other men] I would never,” she said Rolling Stone.