$4.25 Million Jury Verdict Against Rapper Soulja Boy for Assault, Sexual Battery, and Emotional Distress
Won by West Coast Trial Lawyers.
A Santa Monica jury found rapper Soulja Boy liable for assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress against a former personal assistant, awarding $4 million in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages.
What happened
In January 2021, a woman identified as Jane Doe filed suit against rapper DeAndre Cortez Way, known professionally as Soulja Boy, alleging nearly two years of physical violence, sexual assault, and abuse she endured while working as his live-in personal assistant beginning in 2018. She alleged he subjected her to repeated beatings, rape, confinement without food or water, threats, and being thrown from a moving vehicle. Her original lawsuit sought $75 million.
The case went to trial in a Santa Monica courtroom in early 2025. West Coast Trial Lawyers attorneys Ron Zambrano, Neama Rahmani, and Dean Aynechi represented Jane Doe at trial. Aynechi led key portions of the cross-examination, pressing the rapper and his manager on photographic evidence of bruising and confronting contradictions in their accounts. When the manager claimed bruises photographed in August 2020 were from a February 2019 fight, Aynechi asked him directly: 'Would you agree with me that a human would not have bruises on them from February of 2019 in August of 2020?' Text messages in which the manager acknowledged the injuries to Jane Doe were entered into evidence.
On April 12, 2025, the jury returned a verdict finding Soulja Boy liable on claims of assault, sexual battery, gender violence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury did not find liability on false imprisonment or hostile work environment. It awarded $4 million in compensatory damages, broken down across the liability findings, plus $250,000 in punitive damages, for a total of $4.25 million.
Soulja Boy maintained his innocence after the verdict and announced plans to appeal. Following the verdict, efforts to enforce the judgment included proceedings to reach the rapper's BMI music royalties. Post-trial, the trial judge noted the size of the non-economic damages award relative to the plaintiff's claimed economic losses but, as of reporting, did not reduce the verdict.
Rahmani stated after the verdict: 'Today's verdict is just the beginning of justice for Soulja Boy's victims, and other victims in the music industry.'
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Cassius Life: California Jury Finds Soulja Boy Liable For Assault, Sexual Battery (Apr 2025)·Archived copy
- 2.KBTX / Associated Press: Jury finds Soulja Boy liable for abuse, sexual assault (Apr 2025)·Archived copy
- 3.Legal Affairs and Trials (Meghann Cuniff): Soulja Boy testifies; Dean Aynechi cross-examination (Mar 2025)·Archived copy
- 4.The FADER: Soulja Boy found liable for sexual assault, abuse in $4 million civil suit (Apr 2025)·Archived copy
- 5.Courthouse News Service: Judge considers trimming $4.25 million Soulja Boy verdict (2025)·Archived copy
- 6.Complex: Soulja Boy's Royalties Could Be Sold for $4M Verdict (2025)
More proven verdicts from West Coast Trial Lawyers
All West Coast Trial Lawyers proven verdicts →A federal jury in Los Angeles found that a Riverside County sheriff's corporal used excessive and negligent deadly force when he shot Jeffrey Monroy, a 33-year-old pool worker, in the back after Monroy stabbed him with a screwdriver. The jury put 70 percent of the fault on the deputy and 30 percent on Monroy. The court entered a $13.1 million judgment for Monroy's parents.
A Los Angeles jury returned a $7 million verdict in 2022 for Irene Melendez after her severely disabled adult son died from heat exposure when a transport driver left him inside a parked vehicle on a 112-degree August afternoon.
After a two-week trial, a Los Angeles jury found Ye (Kanye West) liable for injuring project manager Tony Saxon at his Malibu waterfront property, awarding $140,000 in damages and prompting a follow-on motion for $1.23 million in attorney fees.
Related sexual abuse verdicts
A Riverside County jury awarded $2.28 billion on April 25, 2023, to a woman identified as Jane Doe who was sexually abused by her stepfather from age 5 until she was 14, at the family's Lake Elsinore home and at events and property of the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The stepfather, who had pleaded guilty in 1997 to lewd acts with a child under 14 and served three years in state prison, admitted the abuse at deposition, then skipped the first day of jury selection and withdrew his answer rather than face a bench warrant. The church settled for $1 million and the mother for $200,000 before trial. The verdict, $836 million in compensatory damages and $1.44 billion in punitive damages after three days of deliberation, is one of the largest ever returned for a single survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
A Rio Arriba County jury held Acadia Healthcare and its New Mexico foster care subsidiaries responsible for placing an 8-year-old girl with a foster father who raped her repeatedly, returning one of the largest single-plaintiff sexual abuse verdicts in the country.
A St. Charles County judge entered a $300 million bench-trial judgment for a child, identified only as G.T., who was physically and sexually abused between the ages of three and five while in the care of Susan and James McLaurie, though one defendant died before the suit was filed and the only known insurance was a $303,000 policy.
A St. Charles County jury awarded $247.3 million to six women sexually assaulted by an unlicensed massage therapist at Oasis Foot Spa & Massage in St. Peters, finding the spa and its owner liable for hiring him without any background check and ignoring an early complaint. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in full in 2024.