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    Soulja Boy Is Ordered to Pay $4 Million in Sexual Assault Case

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    The rapper, known for songs like “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” was found liable of assaulting a woman who said she was his assistant over two years.A jury in Los Angeles found the rapper Soulja Boy liable for sexual battery and assault, ordering him to pay $4 million to a woman who said that he became violent toward her as their once-professional relationship turned romantic, the woman’s lawyer said.The decision on Thursday, which was also reported by The Associated Press, came after a nearly monthlong trial, in which the woman said that she had started as the rapper’s assistant.She accused him of physically and sexually assaulting her over two years. Soulja Boy — known for songs like “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” and “Pretty Boy Swag” — denied the claims during the trial.“Our client is pleased with and vindicated by the verdict,” Neama Rahmani, a lawyer for the woman, whose name was not revealed in the proceedings, said in a statement. “Yesterday’s verdict is just the beginning of justice for Soulja Boy’s victims and a reckoning for the entire music industry.”Reading a statement on his phone, Soulja Boy, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, criticized the verdict outside the Superior Court in Los Angeles County after the verdict.“I believe this entire process has been tainted by a system that is not designed to protect the rights of the accused,” Mr. Way said. “I want to make it clear that I am innocent.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      James Toback Is Ordered to Pay $1.7 Billion in Sexual Assault Case

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      After the former Hollywood director stopped participating in the civil case against him, a jury awarded 40 accusers $42 million each.A jury in New York awarded $1.7 billion in damages to 40 women who sued the former movie director and writer James Toback over allegations of sexual assault, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.Mr. Toback, once a Hollywood fixture known for writing “Bugsy” and directing “The Pick-up Artist,” had been defending himself against the lawsuit for a couple of years but more recently had stopped participating in the case. He has denied the allegations against him.A judge entered a default judgment against him in January and a jury trial was held to determine how much money Mr. Toback would owe each plaintiff. On Wednesday, the jurors arrived at $42 million each, said Brad Beckworth, one of the lawyers who represents the women.Mr. Toback, 80, has described himself in court papers as being “financially destitute,” and it is unclear how much of the judgment he will be able to pay.The women’s allegations span from the late 1970s to the mid-2000s. Many of their accounts involve Mr. Toback approaching them in public, setting up meetings to discuss potential acting roles and then assaulting them at the meetings.Mr. Toback, who was accused in a Los Angeles Times article of being a serial harasser toward the start of the #MeToo movement in 2017, declined to comment in a text message on Thursday. He had been representing himself in court, including taking depositions of accusers himself. But he wrote in court papers last year that persistent health problems had made it difficult for him to keep up with the case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Sean Kingston and His Mother Are Convicted in $1 Million Fraud Scheme

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      Mr. Kingston, who is best known for his 2007 hit single “Beautiful Girls,” and his mother were charged with defrauding sellers of high-end vehicles, jewelry and other goods, prosecutors said.A jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., convicted the rapper Sean Kingston and his mother on Friday in a scheme involving more than $1 million worth of fraud, according to prosecutors.Mr. Kingston, 35, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, and his mother, Janice Turner, 62, both of Southwest Ranches, Fla., had been charged with five counts of wire fraud.They essentially took possession of high-end vehicles, jewelry and other goods by pretending to have paid for them through the use of fraudulent documents, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida.Each faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each count, prosecutors said. The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced in July.Ms. Turner, who testified during the trial, was taken into federal custody on Friday. Her lawyer, Humberto Dominguez, said on Saturday morning that they will appeal the verdict.Mr. Kingston, who did not testify, was allowed to post bond of a home valued at $500,000 and $200,000 in cash, but will remain in home detention with electronic monitoring. His lawyer, Zeljka Bozanic, said on Saturday that she was thankful that Mr. Kingston was allowed to remain out on bond but added that they will also file an appeal.As a 17-year-old, Mr. Kingston became known for his debut single, “Beautiful Girls,” which used a sample from Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” It was ranked at No. 1 for four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2007.“He spent his childhood in Jamaica, which gave him his stage name and his command of patois,” the critic Kelefa Sanneh wrote in The New York Times in 2007, “but his version of thug love (‘Girl, I know it’s rough, but come with me/We can take a trip to the ’hood’) makes it sound as if he’s trying too hard, or not hard enough.”Mr. Kingston’s home in Southwest Ranches, Fla., west of Fort Lauderdale.Amy Beth Bennett/The South Florida Sun Sentinel, via Associated PressAccording to prosecutors, Mr. Kingston and Ms. Turner “unjustly enriched themselves” by falsely claiming that they had executed bank wire or other monetary transfers as payment for vehicles, jewelry and other high-end items when no such transfers had taken place.It added up to a property haul of more than $1 million, prosecutors said.Mr. Kingston and Ms. Turner were accused of an “organized scheme to defraud” establishments, including a car dealership and a jeweler, of more than $50,000, according to arrest warrants for them.Mr. Kingston and Ms. Turner were also accused of stealing a Cadillac Escalade from the dealership and $480,000 in jewelry from an individual, according to the warrants.Ms. Turner pleaded guilty in 2006 to charges of bank fraud and filing fraudulent loan applications and was sentenced to 16 months in prison, according to court records. She was released in March 2007. More

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      in Television

      Karen Huger, ‘Real Housewives’ Star, Gets 2-Year Sentence for D.U.I.

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      Ms. Huger, a fixture on the Potomac franchise for nine years, will most likely serve one year of the prison sentence.Karen Huger, an original cast member of “The Real Housewives of Potomac,” was sentenced to two years in prison on Wednesday for driving under the influence of alcohol and other driving violations, capping a twisting tale that put her sobriety and recovery at the center of the reality television show.One year of the sentence was suspended, meaning Ms. Huger will most likely serve one year in prison. She was also fined $2,900.Under the terms of her sentencing, Ms. Huger will not be allowed to drive for a year after her release and will receive five years of supervised probation with interlock — a miniature breathalyzer device that prevents a vehicle’s engine from starting unless the person behind the wheel is sober enough to drive.Ms. Huger was found guilty by a jury in December of driving under the influence of alcohol, driving while impaired by alcohol, negligent driving, failure to control speed to avoid a collision, and failure to notify the authorities of an address change. She was acquitted of reckless driving.She was arrested in March 2024 in Potomac, Md., an affluent community more than 10 miles northwest of Washington, after driving onto the center median, striking a pedestrian sign and then crashing into a grassy area on the side of the road.Body camera footage of the arrest showed Ms. Huger refusing to produce her driver’s license and repeatedly asking a police officer, “Do you know who I am?” Ms. Huger, whose speech was slurred, also said she had consumed a couple of beers and was run off the road by another driver.The reality star’s arrest and subsequent court appearances became a central story line in the most recent season of “The Real Housewives of Potomac.” Cameras followed Ms. Huger as she met with lawyers and made her first court appearance, but she did not discuss the details of the case on camera.Alcohol is regularly consumed at social events and small gatherings on the show, but Ms. Huger, who is known informally as the Grande Dame of Potomac, was not filmed drinking this season. However, she entered a treatment facility in January for “taking antidepressants and drinking,” according to a short video message that was played for her castmates.Ms. Huger had three previous alcohol-related offenses. Most recently, she was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol in Maryland in 2011.Ryan Tresdale, Ms. Huger’s manager, said in a statement in January that his client had made the “important decision to enter a private recovery program,” causing her to miss the Season 9 reunion.“She was fully supported in this choice,” he said. “We stand behind Karen as she embarks on this meaningful journey and are proud of her for taking such a significant step forward in her personal growth.” More

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      in Music

      Morgan Wallen Pleads to Reduced Charges in Chair-Throwing Incident

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      The country superstar agreed to misdemeanor reckless endangerment charges and a week at a D.U.I. education center.The country superstar Morgan Wallen pleaded guilty on Thursday in a Nashville courtroom to misdemeanor reckless endangerment charges stemming from an arrest in April, in which he was accused of throwing a chair from the sixth-story roof of a downtown bar.In exchange for prosecutors dropping the felony counts of reckless endangerment against Mr. Wallen, the singer, 31, entered a plea agreement that requires him to spend seven days at a D.U.I. education center and be on probation for two years.“Upon the successful completion of his probation, the charges will be eligible for dismissal and expungement,” Worrick Robinson IV, a lawyer for Mr. Wallen, said in a statement following the court appearance. “Mr. Wallen has cooperated fully with authorities throughout these last eight months, directly communicating and apologizing to all involved. Mr. Wallen remains committed to making a positive impact through his music and foundation.”The chart-topping performer had just opened his latest blockbuster stadium tour earlier this year when he was arrested and charged for throwing the chair from atop Chief’s, a bar on lower Broadway owned by a fellow country star, Eric Church. The chair landed near Nashville police officers, authorities said, and staff members at Chief’s told them Mr. Wallen was responsible.Mr. Wallen was previously arrested and charged in May 2020 with public intoxication and disorderly conduct in downtown Nashville. Months later, he was dropped from an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” for not following Covid-19 protocols after social media footage showed him doing shots and kissing fans at a bar in the lead-up to his appearance.The next year, immediately following the release of his breakout album, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” Mr. Wallen faced widespread but temporary industry backlash when TMZ published a video of him referring to a friend with a racial slur. Mr. Wallen cited a night of hard drinking for his “ignorant” language, calling it “hour 72 of a 72-hour bender,” and said he checked himself into rehab for 30 days following the incident.“You know, just trying to figure it out,” Mr. Wallen said on “Good Morning America” as he returned to the spotlight. “Why am I acting this way? Do I have an alcohol problem? Do I have a deeper issue?”His next album, “One Thing at a Time,” did not suffer commercially, spending a total of 19 weeks at No. 1. Last month, he won entertainer of the year, the top honor, at the Country Music Association Awards, though he did not attend the ceremony. More

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      in Music

      YoungBoy Never Broke Again Sentenced to 23 Months in Prison For Gun Possession

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      The rapper, whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden, admitted to possessing guns as a felon in Louisiana. He faced a maximum sentence of 25 years.YoungBoy Never Broke Again, one of the most-streamed hip-hop artists in the United States, has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison by a federal judge in Utah for possessing weapons as a felon.The rapper, whose real name is Kentrell D. Gaulden, was sentenced on Tuesday to 23 months in prison on gun charges related to a case in Louisiana. Mr. Gaulden, 25, was also sentenced to five years of probation and fined $200,000 for a gun charge in a separate Utah case.Federal law bars gun ownership by felons. In 2017, Mr. Gaulden was convicted of aggravated assault with a firearm, a felony, in a Louisiana court. Details of that case could not be independently confirmed early Wednesday.In a plea agreement filed in the United States District Court in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Mr. Gaulden said that he had been in possession of three guns since his earlier felony conviction.In the first instance, Mr. Gaulden admitted to possessing two guns while filming a music video in Baton Rouge, La., in September 2020. In the second, a semiautomatic pistol was found in the master bedroom of his Utah home during a search, according to the plea agreement.He faced a maximum prison sentence of 10 years in the Louisiana case and 15 years in the Utah case.“This has been a long road that involved extensive litigation and ultimately extensive negotiation,” Mr. Gaulden’s lawyers said in a statement on Wednesday night. “Kentrell’s defense team is very happy for Kentrell and we look forward to his many future successes.”Mr. Gaulden, who is best known as NBA YoungBoy, has legions of dedicated fans. Many of his songs receive hundreds of millions of streams on Spotify and YouTube.But he has a history of legal problems.In 2022, Mr. Gaulden was found not guilty in a similar gun possession case in California. Police in the Los Angeles area had found a pistol and ammunition in the car he was driving. His lawyers argued that he did not know that the weapon was in the car at the time, and that his fingerprints were not found on the gun. More

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      in Music

      YSL Trial Ends With Final Defendants Acquitted of Murder and Gang Charges

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      The winding, yearslong case against the star Atlanta rapper Young Thug, who recently pleaded guilty to gang charges, and five others concluded on Tuesday.Shannon Stillwell, left, and Deamonte Kendrick were found not guilty of murder and conspiracy to violate the RICO act.Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressMiguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressThe two remaining defendants in the gang conspiracy and racketeering case against YSL, the Atlanta rap label that prosecutors said doubled as a violent street crew led by Young Thug, were found not guilty on Tuesday of murder and conspiracy to violate the RICO act.The verdict ended a winding trial that became the longest in Georgia history. It arrived nearly two years after jury selection began and followed a year of testimony from close to 200 witnesses and nearly 16 hours of deliberations spread across four days.Young Thug, the platinum-selling rapper born Jeffery Williams, accepted a guilty plea on Oct. 31 and was released from jail after being sentenced to time served and 15 years of strict probation. As the case limped toward its conclusion in recent weeks, three other defendants also negotiated plea deals amid chaotic proceedings.Yet two of the original six men on trial — Deamonte Kendrick, known as the rapper Yak Gotti, and Shannon Stillwell, also known as Shannon Jackson — said they rejected similar deals with prosecutors, opting to leave their fate to jurors in Fulton County, Ga.On Tuesday, Mr. Kendrick and Mr. Stillwell were acquitted of the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas Jr., an alleged gang rival, and also found not guilty of participating in criminal street gang activity and conspiracy to violate Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, or RICO. Mr. Stillwell was also acquitted of a second murder, but he was found guilty of a single count: possessing a firearm as a felon.The judge in the case, Paige Reese Whitaker, was required to sentence Mr. Stillwell to the maximum sentence for the gun charge — 10 years in prison — because of recidivism guidelines. But she opted to convert all but two of those years to probation while also crediting Mr. Stillwell with time served.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Is Denied Bail a Third Time

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      A federal judge ruled against the music mogul’s efforts to be released from jail while he awaits trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul who has been charged with sex trafficking and racketeering, was denied bail again on Wednesday after a federal judge rejected his lawyers’ third attempt to challenge his detention.Judge Arun Subramanian wrote in the order that prosecutors had presented evidence of Mr. Combs’s propensity for violence and that he had violated jail regulations by trying to obscure his communications with the outside world.The judge wrote that “there is evidence supporting a serious risk of witness tampering.”The decision orders Mr. Combs to remain at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a hulking federal facility on the Brooklyn waterfront, until his trial, which is scheduled for May. Mr. Combs, 55, has been detained since his arrest in September after a nearly 10-month federal investigation.After Mr. Combs’s arrest, his lawyers offered a robust bail package that they argued was more than sufficient to assuage the court’s concerns about the risks of his release. They offered a $50 million bond, secured by Mr. Combs’s Florida mansion and said that Mr. Combs would pay for round-the-clock security, with visitors restricted to family. Apart from contact with his lawyers, he would have no access to phones or the internet.Prosecutors asserted that there was no way the government could trust that private security guards, paid for by Mr. Combs, could be depended on to prevent efforts toward obstructing justice, which, they argued, he had been engaging in before and after his indictment.Judge Subramanian agreed, writing in the order that “the Court doubts the sufficiency of any conditions that place trust in Combs and individuals in his employ — like a private security detail — to follow those conditions.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Banned From Atlanta: The Challenges of Young Thug’s Unique Probation

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      The rapper was released from jail last week after a surprise guilty plea. For 15 years, a set of strict requirements will govern his life and music.One of the defining Atlanta rappers of his generation is no longer welcome in Atlanta.Following a surprise guilty plea last Thursday in a gang conspiracy and racketeering case that had already lasted nearly three years, the musician Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, was given 48 hours to vacate the Atlanta metro area, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, for the next decade.Once the chart-topping face of Atlanta’s ever-evolving music scene, Mr. Williams, 33, may now return only briefly, under strict circumstances: for the anti-gun and anti-gang presentations he is required to make to local youth four times annually, or for the weddings, funerals, graduations or medical emergencies of his immediate family members.Mr. Williams’s banishment from his hometown was just one of 12 special conditions that he agreed to as part of a plea deal that allowed him to be released from jail that very evening. But can an international hip-hop star pick up where he left off under a new set of strict provisions that could reshape his lyrics, persona and pool of collaborators?According to experts, the length and intensity of Mr. Williams’s probation could present complications down the line, given the requirements of his profession and the vagueness or subjectivity of some of the rules that now govern his life.The judge in the case — who was given full discretion to decide on a punishment because Mr. Williams’s lawyers and prosecutors could not agree on a sentence even if he pleaded guilty — decided on time served and 15 years of probation, with an additional 20 years of prison time hanging over Mr. Williams’s head if he violates the agreement.Along the way, Mr. Williams must agree to be searched at any time; take random drug tests; refrain from promoting gangs in any way; and avoid associating with known gang members, excluding his brother, the musician Quantavious Grier, who is known as Unfoonk; and Sergio Kitchens, or Gunna, a rapper signed to Mr. Williams’s label. (Both Mr. Grier and Mr. Kitchens took plea deals in the same case ahead of trial.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More