Legal news
Former American Idol Finalist Charged with Felony DUI Following Fatal Crash
17-year-old Caleb Kennedy, who reached the top five of American Idol last year before withdrawing under a cloud of controversy, has been charged with a felony DUI resulting in death after his vehicle allegedly struck a building and killed a man inside. WYFF reports that Kennedy was driving a 2011 Ford pick-up truck around 12:40 in the afternoon in Spartanburg, South Carolina when he veered off the road and into a building. The 54-year-old victim, Larry Duane Parris, was pronounced dead at a local hospital three hours later. Kennedy was expected to appear in court for a hearing Wednesday morning. Last year, a then-16-year-old Kennedy made a deep run on American Idol Season 19. But after reaching the final five he abruptly left the competition after one of his old so...
World’s Worst Rapper Arrested in $4.5 Billion Crypto Crime
Heather Morgan, who has released some of history’s most jaw-droppingly bad rap music under the name Razzlekhan, was arrested on Tuesday alongside her husband Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein for stealing $4.5 billion in cryptocurrency. According to the federal criminal complaint, accounts linked to Lichtenstein allegedly hacked into a virtual currency exchange in 2016, initiating over 2,000 unauthorized transactions and making off with 119,754 in Bitcoin. Later, Razzlekhan and Lichtenstein purportedly laundered the funds through a series of crypto wallets. At the time of the theft it would have been worth about $71 million, but due to BTC’s soaring valuation, it could net them about $4.5 billion today. It’s unclear when the pair began dating, but they got engaged in 2019 and married last yea...
All Time Low File Libel Suit to Identify Anonymous Sexual Abuse Accusers
All Time Low have filed a libel lawsuit in an effort to combat the anonymous allegations of sexual misconduct made against guitarist Jack Barakat last year. According to the nine-page filing obtained by Rolling Stone, the pop punk quartet is seeking to learn the identities of the people behind three anonymous social media accounts that initially came forward in October with the accusations, which the bandmates have already labeled “absolutely and unequivocally false.” However, the posts quickly went viral on social media, with the first Jane Doe in the complaint coming forward in a now-deleted TikTok to infer that the band had invited her onto their tour bus when she was 13, offered her alcohol, and asked if they could keep her bra for their “nasty collection.” Advertisement Related Video ...
Four Men Charged in Overdose Death of Michael K. Williams
Four men have been charged in connection with the overdose death of Michael K. Williams, accused of selling the actor heroin laced with fentanyl. Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the men were part of a drug trafficking crew that operated in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. According to video surveillance footage obtained by police detectives, Williams purchased heroin from the group on South 3rd Street in Williamsburg on September 5th, 2021. He was found dead inside of his Brooklyn apartment the following day. A coroner later determined that Williams died of an accidental overdose after ingesting a mix of fentanyl, p-fluorofentanyl, heroin, and cocaine. Irvin Cartagena, Hector Robles, Luis Cruz, and Carlos Macci are each charged with conspir...
Lady A and Lady A Settle Lawsuits over Shared Name
Blues veteran Lady A and country superstars Lady A (formerly Lady Antebellum) have agreed to settle a lawsuit over their shared name. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, they filed joint requests for dismissal on Monday. Details have not been made public, and it’s unclear if money changed hands or whether both parties will call themselves Lady A going forward. Lady Antebellum drastically shortened their name in 2020 following protests over George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis cop. At the time, they wrote of antebellum, “We are regretful and embarrassed to say that we did not take into account the associations that weigh down this word referring to the period of history before The Civil War, which includes slavery. We are deeply sorry for the hurt this has caused.” However, they al...
Drakeo the Ruler’s Family Filing $20 Million Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Live Nation
The family of late rapper Drakeo the Ruler (born Darrell Caldwell) announced on Thursday (January 27th) they are filing a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit against Live Nation and other organizers of the Once Upon a Time in L.A. festival, where he was fatally stabbed backstage in December. The case will be filed next week. In a press conference, the family’s attorney James Bryant played a video that surfaced online of the backstage melee that led to Drakeo’s death. “Mr. Caldwell was essentially lynched by over 40 to 60 people, and as you also saw, Mr. Caldwell had no security,” Bryant said. “That video ran for a full minute and you didn’t see one security officer there. The video you saw was one of the last few moments of Darrell Caldwell’s life.” Bryant also cited Astroworld, Travis Scot...
Three Men Embezzled $190,000 to Buy Boat Named After Harry Potter’s Favorite Spell
Expecto jailtonus! Three men embezzled $190,000 to buy a boat named “Expelliarmus,” which Harry Potter fans will recognize as the boy wizard’s favorite disarming spell. According to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times, it’s part of the broader fallout of the 2017 Washington Federal Bank for Saving scandal in Bridgeport, Illinois. In addition to other shady practices, bank president John Gembara helped William A. Kowalski and his brother Robert Kowalski turn $0 into $190,000 through the dark magic of illegal accounting. Together, the trio purchased the “Expelliarmus” Sea Ray 420 Sundancer motor yacht with a down payment of $200,000, including a $190,000 Washington Federal check that William Kowalski endorsed over to the seller of the boat, plus $10,000 from one of the Kow...
Former Simpsons Composer Alf Clausen Drops Disability Discrimination Lawsuit Against Fox
In 2017, Alf Clausen — the man behind the music for each episode of The Simpsons for 27 seasons — was fired, prompting the composer to file a wrongful termination lawsuit against Fox. Now, Variety reports that Clausen has dropped the lawsuit. Clausen, who was 78 at the time he was fired, filed the suit in August 2019, alleging that Fox let him go from the show due to his age and Parkinson’s diagnosis. A judge dismissed part of the lawsuit in 2020, saying Clausen did not have enough evidence to back up his claims of age discrimination, but he could proceed with his disability discrimination claim. Fox appealed the judge’s ruling, and Clausen’s attorney, Ebby Bakhtiar, told Variety that the justices seemed unlikely to rule in Clausen’s favor. Instead of putting Clausen at risk...
Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd Arrested for Domestic Violence
Slim Jxmmi, one-half of the chart-topping duo Rae Sremmurd, has been arrested for battery after allegedly attacking his girlfriend and mother of his child. According to the Miami Dade Department of Corrections, Slim Jxmmi, who was born Aaquil Brown, was arrested Tuesday morning and taken to Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami. Under remarks, law enforcement officials noted, “Domestic Violence.” TMZ spoke to the arresting officers, reporting that Brown became angry when his girlfriend asked questions about a woman he was following on Twitter. He allegedly left their home, but returned a short time later smelling of alcohol. The purported victim said that when she attempted to move their sleeping child to bed, Brown grabbed her hair and ripped the extensions out of ...
Cardi B Wins Million Dollar Defamation Suit Against YouTuber
The people have spoken: Cardi B was the victim of an Invasion of Privacy. Today (January 24th), a federal jury ruled that a woman’s YouTube videos and social media posts about Cardi B were, in fact, defamatory, ending a two-week trial and awarding the rapper a cool $1.25 million. Born Belcalis Almánzar, Cardi B sued Latasha Kebe in 2019 over a “malicious campaign” to tarnish her reputation. Kebe posted dozens of videos about the rapper with accusations ranging from the unfortunate to the unsavory, including that she had cheated on her husband, that she had contracted herpes, and that she had “fucked herself with beer bottles on fucking stripper stages.” In a trial that kicked off January 10th in Georgia, Cardi said she felt “suicidal” over the videos, proclaiming that “only an evil person ...
Ana De Armas Superfans Sue Universal for Cutting Her Scenes from Yesterday
There’s a lot of faults to Yesterday, the 2019 musical rom-com that imagined a world in which The Beatles never existed. But of all the reasons to gripe about it, two fans chose a really strange one to bring to court against Universal Pictures: The fact that Ana De Armas‘ scenes were cut from the film. The fans in question, Conor Woulfe and Peter Michael Rosza, filed a consumer protection class action lawsuit alleging “deceptive, and misleading advertising.” Apparently, trailers for the film led them to believe that De Armas had a major role, which was ultimately taken out of the film before it hit streaming. Woulfe and Rosza evidently spent about $8 total to watch the film, which — as their lawsuit implies — was wasted due to De Armas’ absence. Though Yesterday‘s main love inter...
Britney Spears Files Cease-and-Desist Letter Against Jamie Lynn Spears
Britney Spears has filed a cease-and-desist letter against her sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, over the latter’s forthcoming memoir Things I Should Have Said. In the letter, Britney and her lawyer Mathew S. Rosengart demand that Jamie Lynn refrain “from referencing Britney derogatorily during [her] promotional campaign” for the book. “Although Britney has not read and does not intend to read your book, she and millions of her fans were shocked to see how you have exploited her for monetary gain,” Rosengart writes in the letter, which adds that Britney was the “family’s breadwinner” who “otherwise supported” Jamie Lynn. The letter continues: “You of all people know the abuse and wrongdoing Britney had to endure during the conservatorship, after initially growing up with a ‘ruinou...
