Key Takeaways
- Takeoff’s estate settled the sexual assault lawsuit Jane Doe filed in 2020, with lawyers promising a formal dismissal before the scheduled Dec. 1 trial.
- Doe alleged Takeoff raped her at an Encino house party; he denied the allegations, and prosecutors declined criminal charges in April 2021, citing insufficient evidence.
- The settlement averts a trial where Doe planned to play Takeoff’s September 2022 deposition, which he recorded five weeks before his killing in Houston.
Takeoff's estate has settled the sexual assault lawsuit a Jane Doe filed against the late Migos rapper in 2020, closing the case less than three weeks before it was set to go before a jury.
Per paperwork viewed by Complex, lawyers for both sides appeared before Judge Huey P. Cotton in Van Nuys on Thursday (Nov. 12) and said the Dec. 1 trial was no longer needed. According to Rolling Stone, attorney Tamar Yeghiayan said the paperwork to formally end the case would come soon, announcing, "A dismissal is forthcoming. It will be filed prior to [Dec. 1]."
Doe sued in Aug. 2020, alleging that Takeoff, born Kirsnick Khari Ball, raped her in a bedroom during a June 2020 house party in Encino. The complaint claims he "flipped her over face-down" even though she explicitly refused.
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She went to a nearby hospital that same day, the suit says, and staff there recorded what the complaint calls physical evidence of rape before contacting the LAPD. Los Angeles prosecutors declined to file charges in April 2021, citing insufficient evidence.
Through attorney Drew Findling, Takeoff denied the allegations, with Findling saying the rapper had become "a target of an obvious exploitative money grab." The estate has maintained that the woman invented the story to extort money.
Ahead of trial, the estate was seeking sanctions after Doe acknowledged under oath that she erased relevant texts once her complaint was filed. Her lawyers countered that the defense waited years to request the messages and never issued a preservation notice.
Doe's Nov. 9 witness list named more than a dozen LAPD officers, plus DJ Durel, the Migos producer she says invited her to the party. It also showed she planned to play jurors two hours of Takeoff's videotaped deposition from Sept. 27, 2022.
Takeoff sat for that deposition exactly five weeks before he was shot and killed outside 810 Billiards & Bowling in Houston on Nov. 1, 2022. His estate, run by his mother, Titania Davenport, then replaced him as the defendant.
The resolution closes one of several legal fights surrounding the late rapper. Patrick Xavier Clark, who is accused of killing him, has pleaded not guilty and goes on trial in April.
