Lawyers representing D4vd, the singer charged with murdering and sexually abusing 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, say they’ve received antisemitic hate mail amid the explosive case.
The person behind one such note, viewed by TMZ, said they were “sicken[ed]” the lawyers would defend the 21-year-old “Romantic Homicide” singer, born David Anthony Burke.
“I’m not surprised you are all JEWS!” they reportedly wrote. “The only race that puts money above all morals and will go to the pits of hell for a dollar.”
The individual also wished the legal team — which includes Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski, and Regina Peter — “find[s] your kids slaughtered in the trunk of a car,” a reference to how and where Rivas’ body was disposed.
The runaway went missing in April 2024 and is believed to have been killed a year later, when she went to Burke’s home and “was never heard from again,” per Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
In September, Rivas’ dismembered and decomposing remains were discovered in the trunk of an impounded Tesla registered to Burke, who was arrested last week without an indictment, at which point his lawyers insisted the “actual evidence … will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death.”
Hochman announced Monday that D4vd had since been formally charged with first degree degree murder with special circumstances of “lying in wait, committing this crime for financial gain, or murdering a witness in an investigation.”
The D.A.’s office said there is also a special allegation Burke killed Rivas with “a deadly and dangerous weapon, a sharp instrument.”
Prosecutors Thursday said a “significant amount” of child pornography has been discovered on D4vd’s cell phone.
Burke, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, is now facing life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty, should the D.A.’s Office choose to seek it.