Justice

Rapper Afroman, best known as the artist who produced the song, "Because I Got High," just prevailed in a defamation suit filed by Adams County sheriffs for his mockery of them for breaking into his house, disconnecting his security cameras, and stealing his money. (See here for my earlier thoughts on this)

Afroman took the incident, and made lemonade, or possibly lemon pound cake, over, and the sheriff's deputies decided that being help up for mockery for their egregious and unprofessional behavior hurt their delicate feelings, so they sued, and lost.

Before Friday, Grammy-nominated musician Afroman might have been best known for his Y2K hit, “Because I Got High.” But now he has a new claim to fame, as the man who fought the law—and won. The southern Ohio resident, whose legal name is Joseph Edgar Foreman, prevailed in a nearly $4 million lawsuit filed against him by seven police officers in 2023, all of whom claimed that songs and videos he released regarding a raid on his home were defamatory and an invasion of their privacy.

The saga began on August 21, 2022, when a group of Adams County, Ohio, Sheriff's Office deputies raided Foreman's Winchester, Ohio home, which is about 55 miles east of Cincinnati. According to a Fox 19 report from the time, police had obtained a warrant to search the residence based on “probable cause that drugs and drug paraphernalia were located on the property and that trafficking and kidnapping had taken place there.”

Foreman, who was not home at the time, posted security footage of the raid to Instagram, including a door-busting breach into the kitchen, followed by a police pause at a dessert stand populated by what we'd later learn was a lemon pound cake. An additional video showed police rifling through his closet, as one law enforcement agent asks “is he a Raiders fan? Still?”

According to Foreman, police confiscated a joint, a vape pen, and $5,031 in cash. (The latter was returned.) He was never charged. A spokesperson for the Adams County Prosecutor’s Office later admitted that the raid “failed to turn up probative criminal evidence.”

Well, it was about $400.00 short, the cops, "Misplaced," the cash.  Yeah, sure. 

………

In the wake of the event, Foreman says he thought about suing the police, but decided against it. "I asked myself, as a powerless Black man in America, what can I do to the cops that kicked my door in?" he asked NPR. “And the only thing I could come up with was make a funny rap song about them and make some money, use the money to pay for the damages they did and move on.”

The result was Lemon Pound Cake, an album released by Afroman in 2022. Tracks such as “The Police Raid,” “Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera,” and the title song retold details of the breach in an exaggerated, hyperbolic, and oft-comedic fashion. Another song, “Will You Help Me Repair My Door," was accompanied by a video that included footage from the breach, set to lines like “Did you find what you were looking for/ Would you like a slice of lemon pound cake/ You can take as much as you want to take/ There must be a big mistake.”

………

It wasn't until this week that the trial began, with Foreman in attendance in a suit patterned with the American flag. He took the stand on Tuesday, WCPO reports. “All of this is their fault,” Foreman said. "If they hadn't wrongly raided my house, there would be no lawsuit, I would not know their names, they wouldn't be on my home surveillance system, and there would be no songs ... my money would still be intact."

“After they run around my house with guns and kick down my door,” he said. “I got the right to kick a can in my backyard, use my freedom of speech, turn my bad times into a good time.”

The next day, the jury reached its verdict after six hours of deliberation. "It's been an emotional case, it's been a well-tried case," the judge said. “In all circumstances, the jury finds in favor of the defendant. No plaintiff verdict prevailed. So the matter will be concluded with defense verdicts.”

I'm not sure what he can do legally in response to what was obviously a SLAPP suit, but there is clearly material for another album in this.