Cardi B is asking a judge to give her a break and postpone her $5 million battle with a man who claims the rap star stole his tattoo and used it on the cover of her debut mixtape without permission.
Cardi has been attempting to settle a lawsuit filed by a guy named Kevin Michael Brophy Jr. He claims Cardi stole his unique back tattoo of a snake and a tiger and plastered it on the cover of her mixtape “Gangsta B#### Music Vol. 1.”
Brophy says he was utterly humiliated by the cover, which features a man with his back tattoo superimposed, giving Cardi B oral sex, as she chugs a 40 ounce of beer.
Cardi and Brophy have attempted to settle the case multiple times, without much luck.
They were making progress when Judge Cormac J. Carney stunned the rap star, by ordering a trial date for October 26.
Cardi says it will be nearly impossible for her to make the trial since she just gave birth – and she has to prepare to battle with blogger Tasha K.
“Just a few days ago, on September 4, 2021, in New York City, I gave birth to a son, my second child. I also have a three-year-old daughter. With all respect, for medical reasons, I do not feel it will be appropriate, fair or reasonable for me to be required to travel from the East Coast to Southern California in mid to late October,” Cardi B wrote to Judge Carney.
“It will be especially important for me to be with my newborn infant over the next two months. As I am and will be in the immediate post-natal period and nursing my newborn child, it would be extremely difficult and burdensome for me to have to be present for and participate in pretrial preparation, beginning in mid-October, and attendance at the trial, beginning in late October, in this case,” the rapper explained.
Cardi also noted that she is set to square off against Latasha K., whom she is suing for defamation, for claiming the rapper had herpes and HPV, amongst other sordid allegations.
That trial against Latasha K. is supposed to start in Atlanta on November 9.
If the case against Brophy is not continued or pushed back, Cardi would have to travel from Atlanta to New York for that trial and then high-tail it back down to Atlanta to battle with Tasha K.
“It would be extremely burdensome for me, in addition to attending to my newborn and recovering from recent childbirth, to have to participate in both trials back-to-back, on the two different coasts, first beginning with trial preparation in Southern California in mid-October, followed immediately by trial here from late October into early November, leaving almost no time then to travel to Atlanta and prepare for the trial there on its eve, with that trial commencing within a matter of a few days after this case,” Cardi eloquently wrote.
Cardi B. said she hopes to settle the whole damn mess with Brophy on October 15.
Regardless, Cardi has asked Judge Carney to delay the October 26 trial date and give her another 75 days to prepare for a trial with Kevin Michael Brophy.
Amazingly, Brophy and his legal team are not opposing the delay.
But they are being strategic by asking the judge to cut the days from 75 to 45 – meaning the trial would start in December, before the end of 2021.
“A trial date set before the end of 2021 will do far more to motivate the parties in settlement discussions at the mediation set for October 15, 2021 than a trial date set in 2022, which is more likely to be ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and less of an incentive to reach a compromise and resolve the case in recognition of the ongoing harm to [Brophy],” said Brophy’s attorney Lawrence J. Conlan.
