Shortly after Cardi B won an almost $4 million defamation verdict against a gossip blogger who made salacious claims about drug use, STDs and prostitution, the superstar rapper tweeted “imma come for everything” along with the acronym BBHMM – “bitch better have my money.”
Eight months later, the star’s attorneys are now pushing to legally make sure she actually has it.
With the blogger Tasha K currently appealing the verdict, Cardi’s lawyers asked a federal judge Friday to either make her pay up immediately or pay a so-called supersedeas bond covering the entire amount. If Tasha (real name Latasha Kebe) loses her appeal, that money will then be automatically handed to Cardi.
Citing Tasha’s own public statements, Cardi’s attorneys said they were worried Tasha might use the delay caused by the appeal to avoid paying.
“This is more than a hypothetical concern in this case,” attorney Lisa F. Moore and Cardi’s other lawyers wrote Friday. “During the litigation, Kebe bragged publicly that she had taken steps to insulate herself from a judgment. And there have been recent online reports that Kebe has moved from Georgia to avoid enforcement of the judgment.”
Tasha’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.
Cardi B (real name Belcalis Almánzar) sued Tasha in 2019, seeking to end what the rapper’s lawyers called a “malicious campaign” to hurt Cardi’s reputation. The star’s attorneys said they had repeatedly tried – and failed – to get her to pull her videos down.
One Tasha video cited in the lawsuit includes a statement that Cardi had done sex acts “with beer bottles on f—ing stripper stages.” Others videos said the superstar had contracted herpes; that she had been a prostitute; that she had cheated on her husband; and that she had done hard drugs.
Following a trial in January, jurors sided decisively with Cardi B, holding Tasha liable for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They awarded more than $2.5 million in damages and another $1.3 million in legal fees incurred by the rapper, and Judge William Ray later issued an injunction forcing her to pull the videos from the internet.
Tasha appealed that verdict last month, arguing in her opening appellate brief that Judge Ray withheld key details from jurors and the verdict the result of a “very lopsided” trial. She’s vowed to keep fighting the case “all the way to the Supreme Court if need be,” even if it “takes years” to do so.
But in Friday’s filing, Cardi’s lawyers say she needs to pay up now regardless of how long the appeal takes. Supersedeas bonds are a standard requirement during an appeal, they said, and it’s Tasha’s “burden to demonstrate why this court should deviate from the usual requirement.”
“Defendants have made no attempt whatsoever to meet their burden to demonstrate why the full security bond requirement should be reduced or waived,” Moore wrote.
Cardi is also repped by William A. Pequignot of the law firm Moore Pequignot LLC and by Gary P. Adelman and Sarah M. Matz of Adelman Matz PC.
