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Security guard Jasmine Ellis is seeking a new trial after losing her assault case against Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B, a move the artist’s legal team has dismissed as “entirely frivolous” and “absurd” in court documents filed Wednesday.
Ellis’s lawsuit, which claimed Cardi B assaulted her outside a Beverly Hills obstetrician’s office in February 2018, was decisively rejected by a jury in early September. Jurors deliberated for just one hour before siding with the rapper, born Belcalis Almánzar.
In her October 31 motion requesting a new trial, Ellis’s attorney Ron Rosen Janfaza claimed there were judicial errors during the proceedings. He also suggested jurors may have witnessed an incident outside the courthouse where Cardi B threw a pen on the ground in apparent frustration after being questioned by a gossip blogger about her relationship and pregnancy.
“Plaintiff requests additional time to investigate this further. Jurors would be intimidated if they had viewed this type of conduct,” Rosen Janfaza wrote in the motion.
Cardi B’s attorneys Peter Anderson and Lisa F. Moore fired back in their opposition filing, arguing that Ellis’s claims relied on hearsay and noting that jurors were repeatedly instructed to consider only evidence presented during the trial. They also pointed out that Ellis’s lawyer failed to raise any concerns about the incident when it occurred.
“If Mr. Rosen Janfaza believed a juror might have been outside the courthouse and standing with the press, he could have asked that the court instruct them yet again to consider only the evidence admitted at trial,” Cardi’s legal team wrote. “He did neither, presumably because there was no reason to think any jurors were outside the courthouse at the time.”
The lawsuit stemmed from a 2018 confrontation at a medical office where Cardi B was seeking prenatal care during her then-undisclosed pregnancy with her first child with rapper Offset. Both parties acknowledged a verbal altercation occurred when Cardi believed Ellis was filming her, which the rapper considered an invasion of her privacy during a “sacred” time.
During her testimony, Cardi B emphatically denied any physical contact between the two women. “She didn’t hit me. I didn’t hit her. There was no touch,” she stated on the witness stand, in testimony that generated several viral moments on social media.
Ellis also claimed in her motion that Cardi B “intentionally hid” the identities of key witnesses—Dr. David Finke and receptionist Tierra Malcolm—who intervened during the incident and later testified on the rapper’s behalf. Ellis’s attorney argued these witnesses should have been excluded from the trial.
However, Cardi B’s lawyers countered that Ellis, who worked as a security guard in the building, knew the witnesses’ identities all along. They noted in their filing that “shortly after the incident, plaintiff tried to enlist Ms. Malcolm in plaintiff’s scheme to sue defendant.”
During the trial, Malcolm testified that Ellis contacted her months after the incident asking for assistance with a claim related to the confrontation. Malcolm declined, telling the court, “I didn’t think if I told my truth [that] it would help her.”
Dr. Finke and Malcolm both testified that Ellis appeared to be the aggressor in the altercation, with a phone in her hand. Cardi B testified she only visited Dr. Finke’s office once as a precaution while traveling in Los Angeles, which is why she couldn’t immediately recall his name during early legal proceedings.
The court is scheduled to hear arguments on Ellis’s motion for a new trial on December 5.
Following her victory in the civil case, Cardi B leveraged the publicity by releasing special “Courtroom Edition” CD covers for her sophomore album, “Am I the Drama?”, which featured her viral moments and hairstyles from the trial—a savvy marketing move that capitalized on the high-profile legal battle.
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6 Comments
This feels like a last-ditch attempt to overturn a clear-cut legal victory for Cardi B. The jury deliberated for just an hour, which indicates they found the evidence overwhelmingly in her favor. Throwing a pen hardly seems grounds for a new trial.
I’m curious to see how the court rules on this request. The jury’s swift decision suggests the evidence was strongly in Cardi B’s favor, so I doubt this motion will succeed. But it will be interesting to hear the judge’s take on the alleged courthouse incident.
While jurors should remain impartial, a pen toss hardly seems like the kind of conduct that would unduly influence their verdict, especially after such a short deliberation. This motion seems more like sour grapes than a legitimate legal argument.
Cardi B’s legal team is right to dismiss this motion as absurd. The jury clearly made the right call based on the evidence presented. I doubt any alleged incident outside the courthouse would have swayed their decision.
Agreed. The jury doesn’t appear to have been intimidated, so this seems like a desperate last-ditch effort by the plaintiff’s attorney.
This seems like a frivolous request for a new trial. The jury deliberated for just an hour before siding with Cardi B, suggesting the evidence was overwhelming in her favor. Throwing a pen in frustration is hardly grounds to overturn a verdict.