Cardi B Should Have Taken The Deal

The video is called, "Pay the two dollars!" The moral of the vid is that listening to a lawyer who is only trying to up his billing can get you in trouble. Many times it's best just to go with the easy way out and cut your losses. 

Cardi B illustrated this point nicely last week. The underlying facts took place in my home town, which surprised me somewhat. College Point, my sleepy little corner of New York City, the little town on the way to nowhere, has grown in importance sufficiently to have its own strip club. A place called the Angels. (I've never been to the club myself; it has been twenty years since I've been back to town at all.) 

Cardi B had a beef with two heavily tattooed bar-tenders (of the distaff persuasion), and late one evening Cardi and a few of her peeps charged the place and gave the girls grief. The ruckus was sufficient to interest NYPD cops from the nearby 109th Precinct. Cardi B and two peeps were arrested for misdemeanor assault. At her arraignment on the misdemeanor, Cardi B was offered a terrific deal by the Queens DA's office. Plead guilty to a lesser assault charge and walk away, no jail time, no community service, no nothing. It had actually happened, after all. 

This is where Cardi B should have "paid the two dollars." Unfortunately, she, like the poor man in the video, had a lawyer. In fact, she had two lawyers, high powered guys. They convinced her to plead not guilty. 

That led to more investigation by the DA's office. They uncovered some damning evidence very quickly, simply by checking the relevant social media accounts. They discovered that Cardi B and the other two defendants were batting this around on whatever chat sites the young people are using these days, planning the assault, and Cardi B had been offering payment to the actual assault team. That makes it a felony. Back in court to be arraigned on the new, more serious charges, Cardi B remained unimpressed. She plead not guilty again, and the DA's offer was, of course, no longer on the table. 

She'll be lucky to get out of this with probation after a guilty plea to a more serious misdemeanor. I'm sure that her lawyers are still telling her, "we'll fight this case to the last drop of your blood and the last dollar in your wallet."