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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida prosecutor told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday (March 7) that three men on trial for the 2018 slaying of rapper XXXTentacion were “predators” who waited outside a motorcycle shop to rob and shoot the rising star, escaping with $50,000.
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Prosecutor Pascale Achille played cellphone videos the defendants allegedly took hours after the killing that showed them smiling and dancing as they flashed handfuls of $100 bills. Michael Boatwright, Dedrick Williams and Trayvon Newsome are all charged with first-degree murder and face mandatory life sentences if convicted.
“This is who they are. This is their real character. Killers that within 24 hours after shooting the victim dead and stealing $50,000 from him, this is what they do,” Achille told the jury as she played the video. “Look at how happy they look. Look at how excited they look.”
She also played surveillance video from the motorcycle shop and from where two of them allegedly stashed an SUV that she says link the men to the killing. And she recounted statements from a fourth man, Robert Allen, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year and testified against his former friends.
George Reres, Newsome’s attorney, implored the jury not to convict his client based on Allen’s testimony or evidence implicating the other two defendants, saying, “He was not there.” He said that Allen, a 12-time convicted felon, should not be believed and that Newsome’s DNA was not found on any evidence.
He told jurors they should not believe Newsome is guilty simply because of the video showing him flashing money with the others, arguing he may not have even known where they got it.
“He did some stupid things — he posed with some money,” Reres said. “Guilt by association is not something the law permits.”
George Reres, Newsome’s attorney, implored the jury not to convict his client based on Allen’s testimony or evidence implicating the other two defendants – “he was not there.” He said Allen, a 12-time convicted felon, cannot be believed and that Newsome’s DNA is not found on any evidence.
He said they should not believe Newsome is guilty simply because there is a video showing him flashing money with the other defendants – he may not have even known where his friends got it.
“He did some stupid things – he posed with some money,” Reres said. “Guilt by association is not something the law permits.”
Mauricio Padilla, Williams’ attorney, called Allen a “liar.” He said the prosecution’s witnesses contradicted each other and Broward County sheriff’s detectives didn’t look at other possible suspects, including the Canadian star rapper Drake — he and XXXTentacion had an online feud. He said his client did tattooing and other work that paid him in cash, so the video of him flashing money means nothing.
Padilla also cast doubt on the value evidentiary value of the surveillance video, saying that while it may show his client in the store and walking back to the SUV, there are moments where the vehicle is blocked and Williams could have gotten out and left.
Boatwright’s attorney is to give his closing argument later Tuesday. The trial began a month ago.
XXXTentacion, whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, had just left Riva Motorsports in suburban Fort Lauderdale on June 18, 2018, with a friend when his BMW was blocked by an SUV that swerved in front.
Surveillance video showed that two masked gunmen emerged and confronted the 20-year-old singer at the driver’s window, and one shot him repeatedly. They then grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag containing cash that XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank, got back into the SUV and sped away. The friend was not harmed.
Boatwright, 28, is accused of being the shooter, while Newsome, 24, is accused of being the other gunman. Williams, 26, is accused of being the driver.
Prosecutors say the men, along with Allen, set out that day to commit robberies and went to the motorcycle shop to buy Williams a mask. There they spotted the rapper and decided to make him their target. Allen and Williams went inside the motorcycle shop to confirm it was him. They then went back to the SUV they had rented and waited for XXXTentacion to emerge and ambushed him, according to prosecutors.
The rapper, who pronounced his name “Ex ex ex ten-ta-see-YAWN,” was a platinum-selling rising star who tackled issues including prejudice and depression in his songs. He also drew criticism over bad behavior and multiple arrests, including charges that he severely beat and abused his girlfriend.
Florida prosecutors are urging the state’s supreme court to reject an appeal by YNW Melly over whether the rapper should face the death penalty if convicted in his upcoming murder trial.
Last month, lawyers for Melly (real name Jamell Demons) asked the Florida Supreme Court to tackle his case, arguing that prosecutors had forfeited the right to seek the death penalty by failing to give proper notice that they planned to do so.
But in a response last week, Florida’s attorney general told the top court that it should steer clear of the rapper’s case.
“Demons has suffered no harm,” prosecutors wrote in the Feb. 27 brief. “He was on notice for three years that the State was seeking death and at no time had the State indicated it was altering its sentencing intent.”
In asking the state high court to take up his case, Melly has argued that it raises issues of “great public importance” for Florida law beyond his individual charges. But in their response, prosecutors said there was no such pressing need for such judicial review.
“No other district court has been faced with this issue, thus showing that the issue rarely arises,” the state wrote in its brief. “Should a death sentence be imposed, this Court will have the opportunity to resolve this unique matter on direct appeal.”
Melly has spent years awaiting trial on first-degree murder charges over accusations that he and another YNW rapper shot and killed Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams and Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas Jr. in 2018.
A first-degree murder defendant in Florida would typically face the possibility of execution if convicted, but Melly’s attorneys argued last year that the state had failed to comply with strict laws on how they must warn defendants that they’ll seek the death penalty.
Florida requires prosecutors to give notice 45 days after arraignment if they plan to seek capital punishment. In Melly’s case, the state attorney filed such a notice when they originally indicted the rapper in 2019, but failed to do so when a so-called superseding indictment was handed down earlier this year.
In July, a trial judge sided with Melly’s attorneys and said prosecutors had forfeited the chance to seek death. But in November, an appeals court ruled the judge’s decision was incorrect. The court wrote that since prosecutors gave notice that they might seek death when they first charged Melly in 2019, they had complied with state rules: “Notice is notice.”
Melly appealed that ruling to the Florida Supreme Court last month, arguing it was important that the death penalty law have “precisely defined and easily understood rules.” But like the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida’s top court hears only a small percentage of the appeals it receives.
In its new brief, state prosecutors urged the court to refuse to do so in Melly’s case: “Demons attempts to find conflict were there is none.”
A decision on whether to take the case will be issued by the high court in the months ahead. If it takes the case, both sides will then present more in-depth arguments on the disputed issues. If not, the case will return to the lower court for a jury trial on the murder charges against Melly.
Two songwriters who sued Benny Blanco, Halsey, Khalid and Ed Sheeran for copyright infringement over their 2018 hit “Eastside” have suddenly dropped the lawsuit. Blanco’s lawyer tells Billboard the accusations were “baseless” and “never should have been made.”
Konstantine Lois and Shane Williams, who perform under the name American XO, accused Blanco and the other stars of ripping off a 2015 song called “Loveless,” claiming that a core riff in each song involved “identical” musical features.
But in a motion filed Tuesday in California federal court, attorneys for Lois and Williams voluntarily agreed to dismiss the case. The filing said each side would pay their own legal bills; it gave no indication that any money would exchange hands or songwriting credits would be amended.
In a statement to Billboard, Blanco’s attorney Donald S. Zakarin said the accusers had unilaterally dropped the case because they were “certain to lose” and would have faced the prospect of repaying the stars’ legal bills if they had continued to litigate such a case.
“While we are grateful that plaintiffs belatedly recognized they had no viable claim of copyright infringement, it is unfortunate that our clients … ever had to deal with an infringement accusation that never should have been made,” Zakarin said. “Like many of the infringement cases we have been seeing in the last few years, baseless infringement claims come at a cost, not merely to our clients in defending but to the public because they will inevitably chill creativity.”
In their own statement to Billboard, Lois and Williams said they had dropped the lawsuit because they lacked “the financial resources or insurance to continue the fight.” But they noted that the judge had actually sided with them in an early-stage ruling, allowing their case to move forward.
“The obvious similarities in the songs created genuine concerns that our work was copied. Before filing the lawsuit, we hired a respected musicologist who shared those concerns,” Lois and Williams wrote. “We continue to believe that our concerns are not without merit, however, simply put, continuing forward with the case would be too costly, challenging, and risky for us.”
Released in July 2018, “Eastside” was the debut single for Blanco (born Benjamin Joseph Levin), who had previously spent years writing and producing major hits for other stars under the tutelage of producer Dr. Luke. The song, co-written and performed by Blanco, Halsey and Khalid and co-written by Sheeran and Nathan Perez, reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 and eventually spent 52 weeks on the chart.
But in May 2021, Lois and Williams claimed that Blanco’s hit was essentially lifted directly from their “Loveless.” In a complaint filed in California federal court, attorneys for the pair dove deep into the alleged musical similarities between the two tracks.
“Both the Loveless riff and the Eastside riff comprise of identical two note dyads of identical note intervals played over identical beats,” attorney Matthew Higbee wrote at the time. “Both riffs are played on guitar and require identical finger positions. Both riffs contain an identical slide of the fingers up the neck of the guitar between the second and third dyad.”
The duo claimed the allegedly stolen riff played a particularly important role in “Eastside,” because it was “repeated on a loop for the entirety of the song.”
Until very recently, the case showed no signs of an imminent settlement. As is typical in such lawsuits, the two sides were in the midst of exchanging reports by musicologists about whether the songs were similar enough to constitute copyright infringement. Both sides then planned to file motions seeking so-called summary judgment – a final ruling without a trial.
But last month, attorneys for Lois and Williams filed notice with the judge that their chosen musicologist had suddenly become unavailable to continue working on the case, and that they would need an extension of deadlines to find a replacement.
Faced with that request, attorneys for Blanco and the other pop stars quickly argued that sudden disappearance raised “serious concerns.” They said there might be an “innocent explanation,” but suggested that it also might be because Lois and Williams couldn’t find an expert who would testify that “Eastside” had infringed “Loveless.”
“If plaintiffs’ problems are the product of the weakness of their claims and their consequent inability to secure an expert who is willing to attempt a rebuttal of [the defendants’ expert], then they should dismiss this case now with prejudice instead of unnecessarily imposing on the time of this court and increasing the costs of defendants,” Zakarin wrote the judge on Feb. 13.
Two days later, the judge denied the request for an extension. Two weeks after that, Lois and Williams dismissed their case with prejudice.
The president and co-founder of PodcastOne, Chris “Kit” Gray, is facing a lawsuit filed by his former executive assistant, who says she was fired after refusing to ship cannabis products legally purchased in California to his home in Florida where cannabis is illegal. PodcastOne is also named as a defendant in the complaint.
Cherri Bell, an executive assistant with more than 20 years of experience including seven years at PodcastOne — which was purchased by media company LiveOne in 2020 — alleges that she was terminated on Feb. 10 in retaliation for refusing two requests by Gray to ship cannabis vape pens, gummies and other THC products across state lines through FedEx.
The suit, filed by Bell’s attorney Timothy McCaffrey Jr. in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday (Feb. 24), claims that after relocating his residence from California to Florida “in or around November 2021,” Gray “began planning trips to the Los Angeles area beginning in January 2022” and, following each of those visits, asked Bell “to ship various items to his home in Florida in random boxes that she was instructed to collect from around the office” using the company’s FedEx account.
“On or around” Oct. 18, 2022, the suit continues, Gray sent Bell a text message requesting that she ship some clothing to his family in Florida along with another package he left at the office. “In this text he also thanked her and mentioned again that he did not want to take the contents [of the package] on the plane and that he was nervous keeping it at the office,” the complaint reads. Inside the package, Bell claims she found “smoking paraphernalia from a marijuana dispensary including vape pens and vials” and subsequently decided not to ship the items after determining it was illegal to send drugs and drug paraphernalia across state lines.
Bell was right: While marijuana possession is legal in a number of states, possession and transportation are barred at the federal level under the Controlled Substances Act. Using FedEx as a drug courier to ship more than 50 grams of cannabis can land a person in federal prison for five years.
When Gray allegedly asked about the package weeks later, Bell says she responded via text that she did not feel comfortable sending the envelope. Gray then allegedly responded, “‘Oh I wouldn’t sweat that,’ completely dismissive of Plaintiff’s concern even though he had admitted to Plaintiff that he was nervous about carrying the package and leaving it at the office,” the complaint reads. Gray also allegedly told Bell he wished she would have told him earlier, “since apparently his supply was running low,” and that he had shipped “similar items approximately ten times in the past.”
Two days later, Gray allegedly asked Bell to drop off the package, along with a few bags of “gummy bears,” with another female employee, who would take care of the shipment. Following this incident, Bell claims she “noticed a definite change in her working relationship with Gray and the way he treated her,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that Gray began to retaliate against Bell in the days and weeks that followed, including by delaying repayment of her expense report, giving her negative performance reviews and attempting to isolate her from the rest of the staff. While Bell was on medical leave for work-induced stress, it continues, Gray terminated her.
Bell is suing Gray and PodcastOne for illegal retaliation, wrongful termination and failure to pay wages upon termination.
Billboard made multiple attempts to reach Gray and PodcastOne/LiveOne officials but did not receive a response.
A Los Angeles judge ruled Tuesday (Feb. 28) that Marilyn Manson‘s lawyers could not cite a recent bombshell recantation by Ashley Morgan Smithline, one of his former abuse accusers, in his ongoing defamation lawsuit against actress Evan Rachel Wood.
Last week, Smithline claimed in a court filing she had “succumbed to pressure” from Wood to make “untrue” accusations against Manson. The singer’s lawyers wanted to use that as evidence in their lawsuit against Wood, who they allege orchestrated an “organized attack” of false rape accusations against her ex-fiance Manson.
But Wood quickly fired back that she “never pressured or manipulated” Smithline. And her lawyers asked the judge to ignore the new filing, arguing that the “eleventh hour” reversal by Smithline was just a “bad-faith” effort to save Manson’s case from being dismissed.
In an order issued Tuesday obtained by Billboard, Judge Teresa A. Beaudet sided with Wood’s lawyers, refusing to allow Smithline’s statements to be admitted into the case record for now because they had been filed too late.
That means the judge won’t view those statements as evidence at a hearing next month over whether to dismiss Manson’s case or allow it to proceed toward trial. The ruling leaves open the possibility that the statement could be admitted if the case survives.
An attorney for Manson declined to comment. A rep for Wood did not return a request for comment.
Smithline and Wood are two of several women to accuse Manson of serious sexual wrongdoing over the past two years. After the Westworld star posted her allegations to Instagram in February 2021, lawsuits quickly followed from Smithline, Manson’s former assistant Ashley Walters, Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco and a Jane Doe accuser. Another Jane Doe case was filed last month.
Manson has denied all of the allegations, and the cases by Smithline, Walters and Bianco have since been dropped, dismissed or settled. Now, the rocker is pursuing his own defamation lawsuit, claiming that Wood and another woman, Illma Gore, had “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously” with false accusations against him.
Last week, Smithline made her bombshell accusations about being “manipulated” by Wood in a sworn declaration submitted by Manson’s attorneys in the defamation case, stating: “I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make accusations of rape and assault against Mr. Warner that were not true.”
The new claims came as Wood’s attorneys were seeking to dismiss Manson’s case by citing California’s so-called anti-SLAPP statute — a law that aims to make it easier to dismiss cases that threaten free speech. Wood’s lawyers say Manson’s case is exactly that: an effort to punish the actress after she chose to speak publicly about years of alleged abuse by a prominent musician.
“For years, plaintiff Brian Warner raped and tortured defendant Evan Rachel Wood and threatened retaliation if she told anyone about it,” her attorneys wrote. “Warner has now made good on those threats by filing the present lawsuit.”
Manson’s attorneys wanted to cite Smithline’s recantation as a reason for Beaudet to deny the anti-SLAPP motion. They argued that it was early proof that they could eventually win their case against Wood, meaning it was a legitimate lawsuit and not merely an effort to stifle her free speech.
But Wood’s lawyers said the window to file such evidence had closed more than three months prior and must be denied: “Plaintiff’s ex parte application is a bad-faith attempt to save his meritless SLAPP claim from dismissal by requesting leave to file an untimely declaration, containing provable falsehoods, made under unreliable circumstances.”
At a hearing Tuesday, the judge denied the request to admit Smithline’s declaration. As reported by Rolling Stone, the judge said at the live hearing that there “really is no explanation as to why this [declaration] is bubbling up at this time.”
A hearing is set for April 11 to consider Wood’s request to dismiss the case under the anti-SLAPP law.
Evan Rachel Wood is strongly denying allegations that she “manipulated” Ashley Morgan Smithline into making allegations of rape against Marilyn Manson.
Days after Smithline made those explosive accusations, Wood filed her own declaration in Los Angeles Court on Monday (Feb. 27), saying she had proof that it was Smithline who had first contacted her with accusations against Manson (real name Brian Warner), not vice-versa.
“I never pressured or manipulated Ashley Morgan Smithline to make any accusations against plaintiff Brian Warner, and I certainly never pressured or manipulated her to make accusations that were not true,” Wood wrote in the filing.
Wood attached screenshots of purported text message conversations, including one in which Smithline told her “I have no reason to make this up!” Another set of messages read: “Just know you set me free. By listening. I love you.”
“Ms. Smithline has always told me that she was abused by Mr. Warner,” Wood wrote.
Smithline and Wood are two of several women to accuse Manson of serious sexual wrongdoing over the past two years. After Wood posted her allegations to Instagram in February 2021, lawsuits quickly followed from Smithline, Manson’s former assistant Ashley Walters, Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco and two Jane Doe accusers.
Manson has denied all of the allegations, and the cases by Smithline, Walters and Bianco have since been dropped or dismissed. Now, Manson is pursuing his own defamation lawsuit, claiming that Wood and another woman, Illma Gore, had “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously” with false accusations against him.
In a filing last week in that defamation case, Smithline made her bombshell accusations about “manipulation” against Wood: “I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make accusations of rape and assault against Mr. Warner that were not true.”
In a response on Monday, Wood’s lawyers submitted Wood’s declaration stating that she had never coerced Smithline. They also filed formal arguments urging the judge to ignore Smithline’s new declaration, calling it nothing more than a “bad-faith attempt” by Manson’s lawyers to save his “meritless” defamation lawsuit against Wood from being dismissed.
“Documented evidence shows that it was Smithline who reached out to Wood about plaintiff’s abuse more than a year before Smithline now claims defendants somehow convinced her that she was abused,” Wood’s lawyers wrote.
In a statement to Billboard on Tuesday in response to Wood’s new filings, Manson’s attorney Howard King said: “It is unsurprising that Evan Rachel Wood is desperately fighting to keep Ashley Smithline’s testimony out of court – because she knows the truth will expose her plot to manipulate the women who trusted her in order to destroy Brian Warner.”
On top of denying Smithline’s accusations about manipulation, Monday’s filings from Wood and her attorneys also came with explosive new allegations of their own.
In a separate declaration, a supposed friend of Smithline named Karl Neilson stated that he was in possession of a voicemail from July 2022 in which Smithline had told him that Manson’s lawyer, King, had improperly reached out to her directly to discuss the case — and that she was worried he was trying to get her to flip on Manson’s other accusers.
“I have not called back, obviously. Obviously, it’s very clear that a lawyer legally shouldn’t and can’t call me without calling my lawyer directly,” Smithline allegedly said in the voicemail to Neilson.
“The only reason why he would be calling me at all, a week ago, and leaving a message is that he thinks I’m the weak link, and he might want to settle with me to turn on the other girls, and say that it was all, like, a ruse,” Smithline allegedly said in the voicemail to Neilson.
In his statement to Billboard on Tuesday, King flatly denied that he had improperly reached out to Smithline.
“I never discussed Ashley Smithline’s claims against Brian Warner until after she had reached out to me and terminated her counsel,” King said. “Moreover, when Ms. Smithline recently spoke with me for almost two hours, we taped the conversation in full and that recording proves that every single thing in her declaration was taken from her words, not mine.”
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Lady Gaga somehow finds herself on the receiving end of a lawsuit over the theft of her French bulldog, Adam Levine accuses a classic car dealer of selling him a fake Maserati, one of Marilyn Manson’s accusers recants her abuse allegations, and much more.
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THE BIG STORY: Lady Gaga Sued Over Dog Theft Reward
A woman named Jennifer McBride says she deserves a huge reward for returning Lady Gaga’s bulldogs after they were stolen at gunpoint – even though she was also convicted of a criminal charge in connection with the high-profile dognapping.
In a lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles, McBride demanded that Gaga hand over a $500,000 reward she offered for the safe return of the dogs after the violent 2021 incident. It was McBride, after all, who delivered the dogs to the Los Angeles Police Department two days after Gaga’s dog walker Ryan Fischer was shot and nearly killed.
But there’s one small detail McBride’s lawyers left out of the complaint: In December, she pleaded no contest to receiving stolen property in connection with the dognapping, receiving a sentence of two years of probation.
McBride’s lawyers say it doesn’t matter: That Gaga made a binding “unilateral” offer to pay the reward in return for the safe return of the dogs with “no questions asked” — and McBride took her up on the proposal when she did so. Whether that argument will fly before a judge remains to be seen.
For a full breakdown of McBride’s case — including her full complaint and her arguments that she “fully performed her obligation” to Gaga — go read our entire story here.
Other top stories this week…
ADAM LEVINE’S FAKE MASERATI – Attorneys for Adam Levine filed a lawsuit claiming that a classic car dealer defrauded him by selling him a fake version of an uber-rare Maserati worth a whopping $850,000. The star’s attorneys say the seller took “active steps” to conceal red flags about the car, like phony stamped markings on its chassis.
MARILYN MANSON ACCUSER RECANTS – Ashley Morgan Smithline, a woman who previously sued Marilyn Manson for sexual assault, filed an explosive new document stating that her allegations against the rocker were untrue. Instead, Smithline claimed she had been “manipulated” by Manson’s ex-girlfriend, Evan Rachel Wood. A rep for Wood strongly denied the allegations.
ARREST WARRANT FOR KODAK BLACK – A Florida judge issued an arrest warrant for Kodak Black for failing a drug test while on bail for a drug charge. The rapper, facing trial over an oxycodone trafficking charge, allegedly failed to appear for a scheduled drug test in February and then days later submitted a sample that tested positive for fentanyl.
PRE-TRIAL SHOWDOWN OVER SHEERAN TAPE – Lawyers for Ed Sheeran’s copyright accusers fired back at the star’s efforts to ban an infamous YouTube clip from an upcoming trial over whether “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On,” calling the video “among the most important and critical evidence in this case.”
NIPSEY HUSSLE KILLER GETS 60+ YEARS – A Los Angeles judge sentenced Eric Ronald Holder Jr. to at least 60 years in prison for gunning down rapper Nipsey Hussle. Holder was convicted in July of premeditated murder over the March 2019 shooting at a Los Angeles strip mall.
LIL PEEP WRONGFUL DEATH CASE SETTLED – The mother of late rapper Lil Peep reached a settlement in her wrongful death lawsuit against her son’s former label and management company, First Access Entertainment (FAE). The lawsuit claimed that Peep’s management team provided him with drugs and kept pushing him to perform even though he was “barely able to communicate.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
ACCUSER SAYS NICK CARTER AIMS TO “SILENCE” HER – Shannon “Shay” Ruth, a woman suing Nick Carter over accusations that he raped her in 2001, blasted the Backstreet Boys member for filing a defamation countersuit against her. In a so-called anti-SLAPP motion, Ruth said Carter’s countersuit had “no other purpose than to harass, intimate, and potentially silence plaintiff.”
FESTIVAL ORGANIZERS GO TO PRISON – Aaron McCreight and Doug Hargrave, two former Iowa tourism executives, were each sentenced to more than a year in prison after pleading guilty to bank fraud charges related to Newbo Evolve, a failed 2018 music festival headlined by Maroon 5 and Kelly Clarkson. The pair admitted to lying to a Cedar Rapids bank about projected ticket sales to secure more funding, even as the event appeared headed toward big losses.
BRONX RAPPER CHARGED WITH MURDER – Bronx drill rapper Kay Flock was charged by federal prosecutors with murder and racketeering along with seven other members of two Bronx street gangs, stemming from seven shootings in New York between June 2020 and February 2022. Flock faces a “mandatory life in prison or death” if convicted.
KELLY AVOIDS LENGTHY ADD-ON SENTENCE – A federal judge in Chicago sentenced R. Kelly to 20 years in prison for his convictions of child pornography and the enticement of minors for sex, but said the singer would serve all but one year simultaneously with an earlier 30-year sentence imposed last year on separate racketeering charges. The upshot is that Kelly is facing 31 years total and will be eligible for release at around age 80.
A woman criminally charged over the theft of Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs is now suing the superstar, demanding that Gaga pay her a $500,000 “no questions asked” reward that the singer allegedly offered for the return of the dogs.
The lawsuit was filed by Jennifer McBride, who pleaded no contest in December to receiving stolen property in connection with the violent incident, in which Gaga’s dog walker Ryan Fischer was shot and nearly killed.
In a complaint filed Friday (Feb. 24) in Los Angeles court, McBride’s attorney argued that Gaga made a binding “unilateral” offer to pay the reward in return for the safe return of the dogs — and that McBride had taken her up on the proposal.
“Plaintiff accepted defendants’ unilateral offer by contacting defendants, and delivering Lady Gaga’s bulldogs to defendants at the Los Angeles Police Department,” McBride’s lawyer K.T. Tran wrote in the lawsuit. “Plaintiff has fully performed her obligation under the unilateral contract.”
A rep for Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
McBride is one of five people charged over the Feb. 24, 2021 gunpoint dognapping of Gaga’s bulldogs, Koji and Gustav. Prosecutors say the singer was not specifically targeted, and that the group was merely trying to steal French bulldogs, which can be worth thousands of dollars.
McBride returned the dogs to police days later, claiming she’d found the animals tied to a pole and asking about the reward. While police initially told the media that McBride appeared to be “uninvolved and unassociated” with the crime, she was later connected to the thieves and charged with one count of receiving stolen property and one count of being an accessory after the fact. In December, she pleaded no contest to the property charge and was sentenced to two years of probation.
James Howard Jackson, the man who shot Fischer during the robbery, took a plea deal in December and was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
In her lawsuit on Friday, McBride accused Gaga not only of breaching an agreement but also of defrauding her with the claim of a “no questions asked” reward.
“The truth was that defendants intended to have its agents and/or law enforcement to ask questions of Plaintiff regarding the circumstances surrounding Plaintiff’s return of Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs,” her lawyer wrote. “The truth was that Defendants never intended to pay the reward money to Plaintiff.
McBride is seeking the $500,000 reward and another $1.5 million in damages.
A Florida judge has issued an arrest warrant for rapper Kodak Black for failing a drug test while on bail for a drug charge, court records show.
The warrant was issued Thursday after Black, whose legal name is Bill Kapri, did not appear for a scheduled drug test in early February and then days later submitted a sample that tested positive for fentanyl, according to records.
Broward County Judge Barbara Duffy issued the warrant and wrote that the rapper had violated the conditions of his pretrial release for an oxycodone trafficking charge from July. At the time, Black was pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) for suspected illegal window tint. After smelling marijuana and searching his SUV, police said they found 31 oxycodone pills and $74,960 in cash, according to an FHP press release. A record check also revealed that Black’s vehicle tag and driver’s license were both expired.
Black had pleaded not guilty to the trafficking charge. At the time, the rapper’s attorney Bradford Cohen told Billboard, “Never judge a case based on an arrest. There are facts and circumstances that give rise to a defense, especially in this case. We negotiated a bond of 75,000 and we will move forward with resolving the matter quickly.”
In January 2020, then-President Donald Trump commuted a three-year federal prison sentence the rapper had for falsifying documents used to buy weapons. Black had served about half his sentence.
Black is nominated for the iHeartRadio Music Awards’ hip-hop artist of the year and has sold more than 30 million singles, with massive hits such as “Super Gremlin,” which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 last year.
Lawyers for Ed Sheeran’s copyright accusers are firing back at the star’s efforts to ban an infamous YouTube clip from an upcoming trial over “Thinking Out Loud,” calling the video “among the most important and critical evidence in this case.”
With a trial looming in April over whether Sheeran’s smash hit infringed Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On,” a pre-game showdown is brewing over whether jurors will get to watch the YouTube video. In it, Sheeran draws cheers at a 2014 concert by seamlessly toggling between the two songs.
Earlier this month, the star’s lawyers argued that the clip will confuse jurors. While such a performance might appear to be evidence of illegal copying, Sheeran’s lawyers argued that it really only showed that both songs feature a common chord progression that’s “freely available to all songwriters.”
But in a response on Thursday (Feb. 23), lawyers for Sheeran’s accusers said the clip was obviously relevant to the core dispute in the case: whether “Thinking Out Loud” shares enough similarities with “Let’s Get It On” to constitute copyright infringement.
“The video of the medley at issue provides helpful guidance to highlight and/or illustrate those similarities and why they are significant,” attorney Patrick Frank wrote. “The medley which defendants belatedly seek to exclude from admission at trial … is among the most important and critical evidence in the case.”
The current case against Sheeran was filed way back in 2017 by heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On.” Gaye’s heirs, who once famously sued Robin Thicke over accusations that his “Blurred Lines” was stolen from the legendary singer, are not involved in the case.
Sheeran’s lawyers have long argued that the star did nothing wrong, since “Thinking Out Loud” and “Let’s Get It On” share only “unprotectable and commonplace elements” that are not covered by copyright law. But Judge Louis D. Stanton has repeatedly refused to decide the case in their favor, ruling that the dispute is close enough that it must be decided by a jury.
In the lead-up to the trial, attorneys for the Townsend heirs filed a formal notice that they planned to play the YouTube clip for jurors. In the video — a six-minute snippet of a November 2014 concert in Zurich, Switzerland that’s been viewed nearly 300,000 times — Sheeran abruptly switches from “Thinking” to “Let’s” and back again, drawing huge cheers from the crowd.
In Thursday’s new filing, those same lawyers pointed out that the judge overseeing the case previously singled out the YouTube clip as potential evidence that might resonate with jurors, saying they “may be impressed” by the footage. “Presumably, if the court believed that the video … would be improper for a jury to view at trial, the court would have been reticent to state a jury’s possible interest in the same,” the Townsend lawyers wrote this week.
In seeking to exclude the clip, Sheeran’s lawyers argued earlier this month that allowing such evidence could have a broader “chilling effect” on the music industry and on medleys, which they called an “important, enduring aspect of live concerts.” But in Thursday’s response, the lawyers for the Townsend heirs sharply disagreed.
“Defendants have provided nothing beyond mere speculation that the inclusion of directly relevant evidence … would have any collateral impact on any aspect of the concert industry.”
An attorney for Sheeran declined to comment on the new filing. But earlier on Thursday, the star’s lawyers filed a motion arguing that the deadline for such a response had already expired; they can file a formal reply brief in the weeks ahead.
