T.I. and Tiny’s defamation accuser avoided jail time at her criminal contempt hearing Monday but saw her lawsuit against the married musicians tossed out of court due to what a judge called her inexcusable failure to push the case along.
Sabrina Peterson appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom and testified under oath that she didn’t mean to defy multiple court orders when she previously failed to pay more than $96,000 in attorneys’ fees to T.I. and Tiny. Peterson said she simply couldn’t afford to cover the couple’s legal bill linked to an appeals court ruling that found five of the seven causes of action in Peterson’s original lawsuit were frivolous.
An Instagram influencer and business coach, Peterson sued the couple, whose legal names are Clifford Harris and Tameka Cottle-Harris, in March 2021. She said they harmed her reputation and business when they denied her allegations that T.I. once put a gun to her head and separately faced credible accusations he drugged and raped women.
“There’s a possibility of you going to jail. Anything you say could be used against you,” Los Angeles County Judge Michael Shultz warned Peterson before she was sworn in to explain herself Monday. Peterson said she understood and told the court that the $96,000 award represented half of her annual income, so the only way she could pay it would be if the Harrises let her pay $1,000 a month under a “payment plan.”
At one point during her testimony, Peterson spoke over the judge, drawing a rebuke. “Ma’am don’t interrupt. I listened to you,” Judge Shultz said. “It’s been 17 months and you haven’t paid a dime,” he said, referring to the October 2023 order from a prior judge granting the fees. The same judge issued a follow-up order last October giving Peterson 90 days to satisfy the debt.
“It’s been almost two years since she has defied the original court’s order, and almost a year since she defied the second court’s order,” T.I. and Tiny’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, argued Monday. “The case should be dismissed, and Ms. Peterson should be held in contempt of court. She has shown nothing but disrespect. … She brags about how much money she has online and that she’s never paying this sum to the Harrises. And she has absolutely no respect for the court’s time or its orders.”
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Brettler said Peterson had made “zero” attempt to advance her own lawsuit beyond filing the complaint and switching lawyers. He said there was no way the trial scheduled for June 9 could proceed.
After staring at his computer screen for several minutes, apparently reviewing the docket, the judge said the contempt issue was “moot” because he was terminating the entire case. He told his clerk to make sure his written order reflected Peterson’s lack of action.
“The case was filed March 1, 2021. It has now been four years and 23 days. The court finds that the plaintiff has failed to prosecute the case. The case is dismissed,” Judge Shultz said. He added that the Harrises could still file a judgment to collect their $96,000. After the hearing, Brettler said they planned to go after the money.
“I’m relieved it’s finally over,” Peterson told Rolling Stone as she walked out of the courthouse. “It’s fine. I’m tired. This has gone on for four or five years. I’m really tired.” In her purse, Peterson had a large envelope that had been handed to her by a process server minutes before the hearing started. Brettler told the court that Peterson had been served with the dueling defamation lawsuit filed against her by T.I. in federal court.
In that lawsuit, filed in December, T.I. claims that Peterson falsely stated in a series of Instagram posts last September that he was “under federal investigation for sexual trafficking of women” in connection with an unidentified celebrity already facing prosecution for such conduct. “Peterson published these statements about Harris knowing they were false, and defamatory, in order to advance her own personal interests,” the lawsuit states.
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In her lawsuit that was dismissed Monday, Peterson claimed T.I. and Tiny defamed her and invaded her privacy with their own series of Instagram posts. In one post from Jan. 26, 2021, Tiny included a photo of T.I. posing with Peterson’s son, who was eight years old at the time.
“Hold up,” Tiny wrote in the caption. “So you want your abuser to train your sons? He was just uncle 2 years ago… now when did you say my husband assaulted you? Did you change your mind or change it back? What’s up wit you today Pooh?… You strange. Everybody know you been special.”
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Three days later, T.I. and Tiny posted a joint statement denying Peterson’s claims. T.I. then posted a video to his Instagram that went viral. “Whatever we ever have done has been done with consensual adults who into what we into and like what we like,” he said. “We want something, we know exactly where to go to get it. We ain’t never forced nobody, we ain’t never drugged nobody against their will. We ain’t never held nobody against their will. We never made nobody do anything. We never trafficked anything. Well, sexually traffic, anything. I ain’t ever raped nobody.”
Los Angeles County prosecutors previously said they declined to file any charges against T.I. and Tiny over an alleged 2005 sexual assault reported to police. Prosecutors said the alleged incident was outside the 10-year statute of limitations.
