The Los Angeles man convicted of sending his 17-year-old son into a restaurant for an armed robbery that claimed the life of celebrated rapper PnB Rock was sentenced Monday to 31 years to life in prison.
Freddie Trone, 42, appeared in a courtroom in Compton, California, to receive his punishment after a jury convicted him of felony murder, two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy following a nine-day trial last month. The jurors deliberated less than four hours before unanimously deciding that Trone planned the brazen robbery of the rapper, whose legal name was Rakim Allen, at Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles and acted as his son's getaway driver after the deadly shooting that took place on September 12, 2022.
During Monday's hearing, Trone started chatting with his lawyer and refused to look at the rapper's mother Deannea Allen as she was called up to deliver her victim impact statement. The devastated mother tells Rolling Stone that she flew out from Pennsylvania to confront Trone, and his seeming indifference while his lawyer stood with his back to her felt like a slap in the face. “Their actions are part of my trauma now,” she says.
“I want to address you Mr. Trone, even though you're talking [to your lawyer],” Deannea said in court, refusing to be silenced. “As a parent, I do not understand – and I've been trying these two whole years – I do not understand how a parent could directly put their child in danger. I just can't comprehend it. That one action had a ripple effect, and it has ruined many lives.”
Deannea said the rapper's 10-year-old daughter, Milan, had asked to await the sentencing with her but suffered a “horrible” anxiety attack and couldn't get on 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 are devastated. We are trying to live with this, but it's very hard.”
She said her hope is that one day, Trone will take responsibility for what happened. “I hope that you can feel my pain, as a parent. I've watched your son's life unfold. He has had a horrible life. I shouldn't feel sorry for this young man, but I do. He has two parents, but he was in foster care. He had a rough go of it. And I shouldn't feel bad for him, but I do. Just as a parent. I just want you to put yourself in my shoes and our family's shoes,” she said.
During the trial, jurors heard that the alleged teen shooter, charged separately in juvenile court, stalked into the restaurant wearing a ski mask and a “Fruity Pebbles” T-shirt and then opened fire on Allen and his fiancée Stephanie Sibounheuang only seconds after shouting , “If you don't give me the jewelry, I'm going to blow her head off.”
Sibounheuang recounted the terrifying attack on the witness stand, saying Allen “threw” her under the table when the gunfire erupted. A medical examiner testified Allen was shot once in the chest and twice in the back.
Trone's co-defendant Tremont Jones, 46, was convicted Aug. 7 as well. He was found guilty of two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged Jones was the one who tipped Trone off to the rapper walking into the Roscoe's with both Sibounheuang and a half-million dollars' worth of jewelry. He was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison.
Reached by phone, Sibounheuang said last month that she was “thankful” for the verdict. “I'm grateful we could get justice so soon,” she said. “I don't have to be concerned 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 that justice is served.”
Trone's defense lawyer, Winston McKesson, had argued during the trial that the dad was at the Roscoe's minutes before the shooting not to plan the robbery, as prosecutors alleged, but to “drum up” business for his beauty supply shop and buy marijuana from Jones . He said Trone's son swiped the keys to their vehicle minutes later and then traveled to the Roscoe's for the deadly shooting without the dad's knowledge.
That short six-minute timespan between when Trone left the Roscoe's parking lot at 1:14 pm that day and when his Enclave was seen on surveillance returning to the scene was a major focus of the trial. Deputy District Attorney Timothy Richardson argued that during that six minutes, Trone armed his son with the semi-automatic gun and the robbery plot.
In his final words to the jury, Richardson said the six critical minutes simply weren't enough time for Trone's version of events. He argued that the surveillance video of Trone's Buick Enclave from the neighborhood showed the vehicle's path, and a round trip to Trone's shop several more blocks away “was impossible.”
“In six minutes, the defense wants you to believe that [the teen shooter] rounded up his boys, got a strap, hopped in his dad's car, and drove back to the Roscoe's,” Richardson argued. “Coincidence? No. Coordinated acts? Yes.”
Edwin Lovo served as the jury foreman during the trial and exclusively told Rolling Stone that the panel focused their attention on surveillance video of the Buick Enclave as it left the scene of the shooting. Trone testified in his own defense that he was not in the car at that point, claiming that he later found his son in a nearby parking lot with three other young men. Lovo said the jury “zoomed in” on 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 somebody with a white shirt and frayed pants in the car. It was the dad driving the car. He was an accomplice. So that led us to follow the verdict form and check off all those points.” Lovo said it was an overhead camera on a nearby church that captured the bird's eye view into the vehicle from the passenger side. He said the jurors could see the driver's thigh and make out the distinctive clothing that Trone was spotted wearing in different surveillance footage from earlier that day.
As Rolling Stone first reported, prosecutors used more surveillance video to piece together a botched cover-up of the deadly shooting. They said Trone set the Enclave on fire a few blocks from his wife's residence after the shooting. His wife told police that Trone had burns on his forearm and legs consistent with arson, so she took him for medical care.
For his part, Jones said he played no role in the alleged father-son robbery plot. His defense lawyer, David Haas, argued Jones was well-known at the Roscoe's, so the theory that he handed Trone a gun in the parking lot with cameras rolling made “no sense.” “What if Mr. Jones is simply a weed dealer?” he asked the jury at his closing.
Allen's stunning murder two years ago sent shockwaves through the hip-hop industry. The Philadelphia-bred artist became a breakout star in 2016 with his triple-platinum single “Selfish.” That same year, Rolling Stone named him a New Artist You Need to Know. He went on to achieve crossover fame with collaborations such as his 2019 feature on Ed Sheeran's “Cross Me.”
After the slaying, Allen's fiancée faced a barrage of accusations that her Instagram post about her meal at the Roscoe's that day led the shooter to their location. When Sibounheuang testified, her since-deleted post of hers was shown to the jury. It didn't specify which Roscoe's location she was at and only showed food. Meanwhile, Richardson said during the trial that Allen and Sibounheuang received their food at 1:12 pm. That meant the Instagram post either coincided with, or come after, Trone's meeting with Jones in the restaurant's parking lot. Richardson argued that it was Jones seeing the diamond-encrusted rings, chains and watches on the rap artist during their fist-bump at 12:31 pm that set the robbery plot 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 was only the plate of food. There was nothing of Rakim, nothing of Stephanie, no jewelry in the pictures, so the evidence from that specific post didn't cause enough reasonable doubt,” Lovo, the jury foreman, said.
In her harrowing testimony, Sibounheuang gave her firsthand account of how the hip-hop star pushed her out of the way to save her life. “He's a hero. [Other men] would never,” she said Rolling Stone.
