A judge made a series of key rulings in Cardi B‘s favor Wednesday as the Grammy-winning rapper prepares for a trial next month over claims she assaulted a security guard at a Beverly Hills medical building in 2018. The singer maintains that the guard, Emani Ellis, was the aggressor, alleging that Ellis was trying to film her entering her OB-GYN’s office while she was visibly pregnant but before she publicly announced she was expecting her first child with Migos rapper Offset.
At the lengthy hearing, a Los Angeles County judge granted the “I Like It” rapper’s request to break the trial into two parts and only allow mention of her finances if she’s found liable during the initial phase. The judge also agreed to block any mention of so-called “prior bad acts” at the two-week trial set to begin Aug. 11 in Alhambra, California.
Cardi, whose legal name is Belcalis Almánzar, had argued in court filings that any mention of her prior “alleged altercations with third parties, police reports, obscenities, drug-related incidents, gang affiliation, exotic dancing, and media coverage” would be “highly prejudicial” and distract from the facts of the case. The judge agreed.
Ellis’ lawyer, Ron Rosen Janfaza, asked if the ruling barred him from asking Almánzar even a vague question about whether she had struck someone before. The judge said that was off limits. Judge Ian C. Fusselman said the rapper would have to “open the door” herself.
“If she says, ‘I’ve never hit anyone,’ and you have credible evidence that she hit someone before, then yeah, you can bring that up,” the judge said. “But you can’t force her to open the door.”
In a ruling adopted from the bench, the judge said Almánzar’s prior acts “have no apparent probative value,” so any references “would be unduly prejudicial and likely to confuse the jury and result in an undue waste of time.” Judge Fusselman then granted two other motions from Almánzar that asked to block testimony from a former police officer and a psychologist. Rosen Janfaza tried to argue that the former police officer was needed to explain “that a crime was committed.”
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“It doesn’t matter if it was a crime. This is civil assault,” the judge said, adding that written jury instructions would explain the relevant law. “I’m not going to allow that testimony. The judge rejected the planned testimony from the psychologist on the grounds that he wasn’t properly designated. Ellis still has a plastic surgeon and another doctor on her witness list.
In her lawsuit filed in early 2020, Ellis alleged Cardi physically attacked her on Feb. 24, 2018 at the medical office where she was working. She alleged the singer “violently” struck her on her head, face, and body, spat on her, shouted racial slurs, and then subsequently got her fired from her job. She claimed the rapper’s “long fingernails” caused cuts on her face that required plastic surgery.
On Wednesday, one of Almánzar’s lawyers, Peter Anderson, confirmed the defense plans to call someone who worked in the building as an eyewitness. He said the woman allegedly “came out and saw plaintiff assaulting Cardi B, trying to strike her.”
Anderson also said in court that Ellis testified in her deposition that the only relevant medication she took regularly over the seven years since the incident was “aspirin for headaches every so often.” He described the testimony as he argued to exclude another doctor who saw Ellis as a patient for the first time on July 23, 2025. That doctor prescribed an anti-depressant to Ellis. Anderson called it “gamesmanship” and “preposterous” for Ellis to designate the doctor as a “treating physician” after the initial appointment last week. The judge did not immediately rule on whether the doctor will be allowed to take the witness stand.
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Almánzar, 32, plans to appear and testify, but her ability to attend more of the proceeding could depend on whether the trial begins on time or gets pushed out a week due to court-related scheduling issues, her lawyers said. The superstar has her new album, Am I the Drama?, set for release Sept. 19, and she’s also the mother of three young children – Kulture, 7, Wave, 3, and Blossom, 7 months – they said.
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In addition to Anderson, Almánzar’s team includes prominent trial lawyer Lisa Fortune Moore, the attorney who helped the rapper score a $4 million jury verdict against gossip blogger Latasha Kebe, known as Tasha K., and also win a trial in which she was accused of using a portion of a man’s back tattoo on the cover of her early mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1.
In September 2022, Almánzar accepted a no-jail plea deal and pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges linked to a bottle-tossing brawl inside a Queens strip club in 2018. “Part of growing up and maturing is being accountable for your actions. As a mother, it’s a practice that I am trying to instill in my children, but the example starts with me,” she said in a statement at the time. “These moments don’t define me and they are not reflective of who I am now.”
