ALHAMBRA, California—A California jury unanimously cleared pop star Cardi B of assault allegations on Tuesday in a $24 million civil lawsuit brought by a security guard over an encounter outside a Beverly Hills obstetrician’s office in 2018.
The 12-member Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated for less than an hour before reaching a verdict siding with the 32-year-old, Grammy-winning hip-hop performer, whose biggest hits include “Taki Taki” and “I Like It.”
The plaintiff in the case, former security officer Emani Ellis, claimed in the lawsuit that Cardi B physically attacked her, spit on her and shouted racial slurs at her. Both women are Black.
Cardi B testified that she never touched the plaintiff but acknowledged cursing at the security guard when Ellis tried to take cellphone video of the singer on her way to an obstetrician visit when she was pregnant but had yet to publicly announce the pregnancy.
At the time, Cardi B was expecting the first of her three children fathered by rapper Offset.
Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Cardi B repeated her assertions of innocence, saying, “I did not touch that woman, I did not lay my hands on that girl.” She vowed to file a countersuit if she were ever named again as a defendant in a “frivolous lawsuit.”
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