Lil Durk may have walked away victorious from his highly publicized murder-for-hire trial, but his federal courtroom battle is not over — and a familiar face will once again be sitting on the bench.

U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, who presided over the trial that ended with Durk being found not guilty, is set to remain at the center of the rapper’s next legal showdown scheduled for October 5, 2026.

This time, however, Durk will face a new jury and separate allegations.

The Grammy-winning Chicago rapper, whose legal name is Durk Banks, was acquitted on September 11 of all charges against him in the Los Angeles murder-for-hire case. Prosecutors had accused him of helping orchestrate a revenge plot targeting rapper Quando Rondo that resulted in the 2022 killing of Saviay’a “Lul Pab” Robinson. After three days of deliberations, jurors cleared Durk.

Despite that major victory, Durk remained in federal custody because he still faces a separate trial involving racketeering-related and weapons allegations.

Judge Fitzgerald had previously ruled that the newer racketeering allegations should be separated from the murder-for-hire trial rather than presented to the same jury. That decision allowed Durk’s original case to proceed without the additional allegations being combined with it.

That means October will bring an entirely different courtroom battle. A fresh group of jurors will be tasked with deciding the new charges based solely on the evidence presented in that proceeding.

Importantly, Durk is not being retried for the murder-for-hire charges he defeated in September. His acquittal on those counts stands.

Still, the presence of Judge Fitzgerald adds familiarity to what will otherwise be a new chapter in Durk’s federal case.

After celebrating one of the biggest courtroom victories of his career, Lil Durk now prepares to return before the same judge but with a new jury and a different set of allegations that could once again put his freedom on the line.