Devar Hurd, the man who’s been stalking Ashanti for over a decade, has been found guilty of felony 2nd degree stalking.
Hurd, 37, had been in jail since 2013 for violating a restraining order by posing for a picture with Ashanti’s younger sister. Hurd chose to represent himself in court and on Wednesday, when Ashanti sat for cross examination, he finally got to ask her to explain why he’s facing a felony stalking charge for tweeting gross messages to her in 2013.
“You continuously tweeted over and over again disgusting, derogatory, disrespectful things to me after you had already gone to jail for doing the same thing,” said Ashanti on Wednesday. “I wish you to stop. I just wish you to stop.”
At one point, while reading off some of the tweets he sent her, Hurd came to one Ashanti remembered and found especially disgusting. It read, ‘eating p**** from the back tastes better from a flight to Russia’. In court he then says, ‘I know how you are when it comes to our sex life … us f****** is very emotional on both ends,’ before attempting to slut-shame the singer by saying, ‘You do lap dances for your performances, correct? ‘I don’t have a problem with it, I’m just saying…’
In his closing arguments on Friday, Hurd said that ‘sending sexually explicit stuff was not a crime’ and that ‘excessive tweeting was not stalking’. He also added that Ashanti could have blocked him if she had a problem.
An additional 1.5-4 years could be added to Hurd’s sentence when he returns to court this month. Had he plead guilty, rather than go to trial, he could have been released on time served. For now, he remains in jail.
