Los Angeles A man convicted of sending his 17-year-old son to a restaurant to take part in an armed robbery that killed popular rapper PnB Rock was sentenced Monday to 31 years to life in prison.
Freddie Tron, 42, appeared in court in Compton, California, to receive his sentence after a jury convicted him of criminal homicide, two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy following a nine-day trial last month. Jurors deliberated less than four hours before unanimously deciding that Tron planned the brazen robbery of the rapper, whose legal name was Rakim Allen, at a Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles restaurant and served as his son’s getaway driver after the fatal shooting on Sept. 12, 2022.
During Monday's hearing, Tron began chatting with his attorney and refused to look at the rapper's mother, Diana Allen, when she was called to give a victim impact statement. The devastated mother says Rolling Stone She had flown from Pennsylvania to confront Trone, and his apparent indifference as his lawyer stood with his back to her was a slap in the face. “Their actions are now part of my trauma,” she says.
“I want to address you, Mr. Tron, even though you speak [to your lawyer]“As a parent, I don’t understand – and I’ve tried for the last two years – how a parent could put their child in direct danger,” Diana told the court, refusing to be silenced. “I just can’t understand it. It had a ripple effect, it destroyed so many lives.”
Diana said the rapper's 10-year-old daughter, Milan, had asked to attend the sentencing hearing with her but suffered a “terrible” anxiety attack and was unable to board the plane. “This is what we're dealing with. She's suffering. Rakim was the bright light in our family. He was a star to us. … We're devastated. We're trying to live with this, but it's very hard,” Diana said.
She said her hope is that one day, Trone will take responsibility for what happened. “I hope you feel my pain as a parent,” she said. “I watched your son’s life unfold. He had a horrible life. I shouldn’t feel sorry for this young man, but I do. He had two parents, but he was in foster care. He went through a tough time. I shouldn’t feel sorry for him, but I do. Just as a parent. I just want you to put yourself in my shoes and our family’s shoes.”
During the trial, jurors heard that the alleged teen, who was charged separately in juvenile court, entered the restaurant wearing a ski mask and a “Fruity Pebbles” T-shirt and then opened fire on Allen and his fiancée, Stephanie Sibonhuang, just seconds after screaming, “If you don’t give me the jewelry, I’ll blow her head off.”
Sibonhuang recounted the horrific attack on the witness stand, saying Allen “threw her” under the table as gunfire erupted. The medical examiner testified that Allen was shot once in the chest and twice in the back.
Tron’s co-defendant, Tremont Jones, 46, was also convicted on Aug. 7. He was convicted of two counts of theft and one count of conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged that Jones tipped Tron off that the rapper had entered the Roscoe home carrying Sibonhuang and $500,000 worth of jewelry. He was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison.
In a phone interview last month, Sibonhuang said she was “grateful” for the verdict. “I’m grateful that we were able to get justice so soon,” she said. “I don’t have to worry about who committed the crime. I don’t have to worry about where it came from. I know exactly where it came from, and I know that justice has been done.”
Trone's defense attorney, Winston McKesson, had argued at trial that the father was at the Roscoe home minutes before the shooting not to plan the robbery, as prosecutors alleged, but to “encourage” business for his beauty supply store and buy marijuana from Jones. He said Trone's son wiped their car keys minutes later and then drove to the Roscoe home to carry out the fatal shooting without the father's knowledge.
That brief six-minute period between Trone leaving the Roscoe family’s parking lot at 1:14 p.m. that day and his Enclave being seen on surveillance cameras returning to the scene was a key focus of the trial. During those six minutes, Deputy District Attorney Timothy Richardson alleged, Trone armed his son with a semi-automatic handgun and planned the robbery.
In his final words to the jury, Richardson said the crucial six minutes were not enough to support Trone’s version of events. He claimed that surveillance video of the Buick Enclave Trone was driving from the neighborhood showed the car’s route, and that a round trip to Trone’s store several blocks away was “impossible.”
“In six minutes, the defense wants you to believe that. [the teen shooter] “He gathered his kids, strapped on a belt, jumped in his father’s car, and drove back to the Roscoe family home,” Richardson argued. “Coincidence? No. Coordinated actions? Yes.”
Edwin Lovo served as jury foreman during the trial and told an exclusive Rolling Stone LeVeau said the jury focused on surveillance video of the Buick Enclave leaving the scene of the shooting. Trone testified in his own defense that he was not in the car at the time, claiming he later found his son in a nearby parking lot with three other young men. LeVeau said the jury “focused” on video of the fleeing car and identified Trone in the driver’s seat based on his clothing.
“We clearly saw it was him,” Lovo said. “There was a guy in a white shirt and ragged pants in the car. The father was driving. He was an accomplice. So that led us to follow the verdict model and check all of those points.” Lovo said an overhead camera located in a nearby church captured a bird’s-eye view of the car from the passenger side. He said jurors were able to see the driver’s thigh and identify the distinctive clothing Trone was seen wearing in various surveillance footage from earlier that day.
like Rolling Stone Prosecutors initially used more surveillance video to piece together details of the failed cover-up attempt for the deadly shooting. They said Trone set fire to the Enclave, a few blocks from his wife’s residence, after the shooting. His wife told police Trone had burns on his forearm and legs consistent with arson, so she took him to the hospital.
Jones, for his part, has said he played no role in the alleged father-son robbery scheme. His attorney, David Haas, argued that Jones was known to the Roscoe family, so the theory that he handed Tron a gun in the parking lot while the cameras were rolling “makes no sense.” He asked the jury at the end of his argument, “What if Mr. Jones was just a pot dealer?”
Allen’s shocking murder two years ago sent shockwaves through the hip-hop industry. The Philadelphia-born artist had become a major star in 2016 with his triple-platinum single “Selfish.” That same year, Rolling Stone Dubbed the new artist you need to know, he has continued to find fame through collaborations such as his 2019 hit “Cross Me” with Ed Sheeran.
After the killing, Allen’s fiancée faced a barrage of accusations that her Instagram post about her meal at Roscoe’s that day led the shooter to their location. When Sibonhiwang testified, her since-deleted post was shown to the jury. The post did not specify where Roscoe’s was and only showed the food. Richardson, meanwhile, argued during the trial that Allen and Sibonhiwang received their food at 1:12 p.m. That would mean the Instagram post coincided with, or came after, Tron’s encounter with Jones in the restaurant parking lot. Richardson argued that it was Jones who saw the diamond rings, chains and watches on the rapper as they shook hands at 12:31 p.m. that set the robbery plot in motion, not the post. The jury agreed.
“We took into account the Instagram post, but in terms of timing, it was not plausible,” said LeVeau, the jury’s foreman. “The photo was just a plate of food. There was nothing of Rakim, nothing of Stefani, nothing of jewelry in the photos, so the evidence from that particular post did not create enough reasonable doubt.”
In her harrowing testimony, Sibonhyuang gave her personal account of how the hip-hop star pushed her out of the way to save her life. “He is a hero. [Other men] “I would never do that,” she said. Rolling Stone.
