A federal jury in Miami was sent home for the long Thanksgiving weekend Wednesday, unable so far to decide whether a Houston-based online commentator defamed rap superstar Megan Thee Stallion.
They deliberated for about five hours before being discharged and told to return Monday morning.
The Grammy-award-winning performer, whose legal name is Megan Pete, is accusing Milagro Cooper of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and promotion of an altered sexual depiction — an AI-generated deepfake that purported to show Pete in a pornographic video. It did not.
Cooper was sent a link to the video while doing a livestream in June 2024 and, while debating its authenticity, tweeted to her then-20,000 followers they could find a link in her likes, according to testimony in the eight-day trial. After determining it was fake, her lawyer Jeremy McLymont told jurors, she deleted the link during the same livestream.
Pete alleges Cooper was paid thousands of dollars to attack her by people connected to the rapper Tory Lanez, who opened fire in Pete’s direction in 2020, resulting in a bullet fragment entering Pete’s foot. She testified against Lanez, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
The jury is considering whether Cooper maliciously and falsely attacked Pete as part of what Pete’s attorneys called a witness intimidation effort before the Lanez criminal trial and, afterwards, by accusing her of lying under oath in that trial.
Pete’s attorney, John O’Sullivan, argued the rap superstar was so distraught by Cooper’s words and actions, she suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and required two five-week stays in therapy, costing $240,000 each.
And, Pete alleged, the ordeal caused her deal pipeline to clog up, losing $4 million to $7 million in potential income, including a chance to appear in a Call of Duty project and a Super Bowl ad.
In seeking a stalking injunction against Cooper in February 2025, Pete said she was so depressed she contemplated suicide, “pushing me to the point where I didn’t feel like making music anymore. I was in such a low place that I didn’t even know what I wanted to rap about.”
O’Sullivan suggested to the jury compensatory and punitive damages could reach at least $30 million, urging jurors to “punish the living daylights out of people who ruin it for everyone.”
He was referring to journalists and others who publish truthful statements in various media and the readers and viewers who expect them to be based in fact.
One series of questions jurors have to answer revolve around whether Cooper was a legitimate media defendant.
The questions included whether Cooper “provides disinterested and neutral commentary, rather than advocacy for a particular client or personal interest.”
Pete argued Cooper was doing Lanez’s bidding in questioning whether Pete was truthful about the shooting.
Cooper testified she was a reporter, albeit a “non-traditional” one. “I am a commentator,” she testified. “All I did was facilitate the conversation.”
If she is found to be a media defendant, Cooper’s defense argued, she could not be found liable and ordered to pay damages for defamation, because Pete’s lawyers failed to file a required pre-suit notification to Cooper demanding a retraction.
But, Cooper’s attorney conceded, the counts and damages related to the emotional distress and altered sexual depiction video would stand nonetheless.
If Pete does prevail, it’s unclear whether or how much money she can recover from Cooper, who testified she is essentially broke, unable to pay her attorneys but trying to pay for rent and groceries.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nbcmiami.com ’
