Rapper DaBaby has been charged with felony battery over a December 2020 incident that left one person injured.
The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office on Saturday issued a warrant for the rapper’s arrest and charged him and a member of his security entourage.
The arrest warrant has been circulating online, which showed that DaBaby, whose real name is Johnathan Kirk, and a man named Thankgod Chimmeka Awute were both charged with felony battery for allegedly “willfully and unlawfully [using] force and violence” against the victim Gary Pagar. Awute has also been charged with felony robbery, according to TMZ.
The incident reportedly occurred on December 2, 2020, on the victim’s rental property in Los Angeles while DaBaby was shooting a music video.
The victim had filed a civil lawsuit against DaBaby and his manager Kinsza Virgil in February 2021. In the lawsuit, Pagar alleges that he attempted to enforce the agreed property rental rules between him and DaBaby’s team when he was violently attacked by Awute and DaBaby.
The elderly man alleges that Awute first attacked him before DaBaby ordered Awute to stop, and DaBaby himself punched him and caused him to lose a tooth.
According to TMZ, the lawsuit outlines the details leading up to the incident and the property rental rules, which was that the massive rental property was to be used by DaBaby and his team for a weekend, but they could not have more than 12 people at the residence.
Pagar manages the property, the lawsuit says, and he eventually got wind that DaBaby’s management team had breached the rental agreement. When he found out, he said he called and spoke to them several times, and they had assured him that the guest limit was not over 12. However, when he paid a visit on December 2, he realized that the group was shooting a music video with an entire film crew and about 40 people.
When he tried to shut down the events taking place and speak to DaBaby, he says he was attacked by someone in the rapper’s crew.
A video has been circulating online that partially shows the events with a man in a yellow and plaid jacket grabbing and dragging Pagar. DaBaby can be seen wearing an orange and black shirt, sitting behind a car.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit does not name an amount it is seeking for damages as it is listed as an unlimited civil case in which the amount demanded exceeds over $25,000. Pagar is, however, seeking monetary, nonmonetary, and punitive damages against Dababy.
A damages hearing is set for June 21, 2022.
DaBaby’s latest foul-up follows a string of violent behavior in the last few months. Just over a week ago, he shot and injured a man who was allegedly trespassing on his property. He also has a handful of legal cases and active investigations into allegations of assaults and battery, with the most recent one involving Brandon Bills, the brother of his ex-girlfriend Danileigh, whom he and his crew attacked in a bowling alley in Los Angeles earlier this year.
Bills has refused to cooperate with police leading the investigation to a standstill even though DaBaby was seen on video kicking and smacking Bills.
This week, the family of a man he shot and killed in Walmart in 2018 called for the case to be reopened, given the rapper’s penchant for violence. The rapper had claimed he shot the man in self-defense.
