By ANDREW DALTON AP Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A jury gave Cardi B a quick and absolute victory Tuesday at a trial in the lawsuit of a security guard who alleged the rap star assaulted her at a doctor’s office during her then-secret first pregnancy.
The jury of six men and six women at a small courthouse in Alhambra, California deliberated for only about an hour before finding Cardi not liable in the lawsuit brought by Emani Ellis, who alleged Cardi cut her face with a fingernail and spat on her in the hallway of a Beverly Hills obstetrician in February of 2018.
Only nine of the 12 jurors were required for a verdict in the civil case, but their decision in Cardi’s favor was unanimous.
“The next person who tries to do a frivolous lawsuit against me, I’m going to counter-sue, and I’m gonna make you pay, because this is not OK,” she said outside the courthouse, where she posed for pictures with fans. “I am not that celeb that you sue, and you think is going to settle. I’m not gonna settle. Especially when I’m super completely innocent.”
She said she had to miss her kids’ first day of school because of the trial, and said her forehead was “raw, raw, raw” after all the elaborate wig changes during the trial that at one point even left her lawyer confused over which was her real hair. (None of them were, she said with a laugh.)
During a lunchbreak before the verdict Tuesday in a moment captured by cameras from several media outlets, she threw a marker she was using for autographs at a man who shouted questions to her about whether she was currently pregnant, and who the father is. She called the questions disrespectful.
In two days of testimony last week that were livestreamed, widely viewed and full of viral moments, the hip-hop star testified she feared that Ellis was going to make her pregnancy public. She acknowledged that the two argued, but said it never got physical.
“I will say it on my deathbed. I did not touch that woman,” she said after her win. “I did not touch that girl. I didn’t lay my hands on that girl.”
Ron Rosen Janfaza, the lawyer for the plaintiff Ellis, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. He said outside court that they plan to appeal the decision.
After several days off, the trial resumed with closing arguments earlier Tuesday.
Janfaza told jurors that Ellis, who had hoped to work in law enforcement or something similar, “lost her future” along with her job over the incident.
“Whether it’s the FBI, police, attorney, whatever she wanted to do, this incident cut it off,” he said in his closing argument. “No more, because of the trauma she sustained.”
He also called out the profanity Cardi freely used during her testimony, suggesting she had scorn for the proceedings.
“The defendant came here, used all of this foul language,” he told the jurors. “This is a court of law, you cannot speak this way in court. I have never seen this before.”
Cardi testified that she had been visiting Los Angeles doing promotional work in February 2018 around that year’s NBA All-Star Game. She was four months into her pregnancy with the first of her three children with rapper Offset. She had told her inner circle she was having a baby, but not the public or her parents.
The obstetrician’s office had been closed to other patients on a Saturday for her privacy.
She said Ellis, a security guard for the building, followed her to her fifth-floor appointment. Cardi told jurors last week that she heard Ellis say her name into a phone and appeared to be filming her.
“I told her, ‘Why are you recording?'” Cardi testified, “and she said, ‘Oh my bad.’ She practically apologized.'”
But the argument grew increasingly heated, she said.
“As we were arguing she’s backing me, she’s walking into me,” Cardi said.
Ellis testified that the incident left her humiliated and traumatized, and the scar on her face required cosmetic surgery. Ellis, who lost her job over the incident, sought damages that include medical expenses, compensation for emotional and physical suffering, and lost wages, along with punitive damages. She does not specify a total amount in the lawsuit but Cardi said from the stand that she is “suing me for $24 million.”
A receptionist who broke up the argument between Cardi and Ellis largely backed the rapper’s account in testimony.
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AP Entertainment Writer Ryan Pearson contributed to this report from Alhambra, California.