The Rick Ross lawyer leading his defense against domestic violence charges is Steve Sadow, the Atlanta attorney who took over Trump’s defense in the Georgia election interference case in 2023.
Sadow and attorney Bradley Horenstein released a statement Thursday after Ross surrendered to Miami Beach police on a felony charge of battery by strangulation and a misdemeanor battery charge. They said Ross is being wrongfully accused by an ex whose “true motivations are unclear.” They argued that she did not file a police report until a month after the alleged August 28 incident. They said Ross is innocent, has pleaded not guilty, and asked friends, fans and the public not to prejudge the case and to let the judicial process run its course.
Sadow is not new to Ross. He has represented the rapper before, and his client list includes T.I., Usher, Ray Lewis and Gunna, whom he defended in the YSL racketeering case tied to Young Thug. In August 2023, Trump dropped attorney Drew Findling and brought in Sadow hours before surrendering at the Fulton County jail in the case accusing him and 18 others of trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. Six years earlier, Sadow had posted on Twitter that he did not support Trump.
The month long gap is the center of the Rick Ross lawyer statement, but under Florida law a month is nothing. A statute of limitations is the deadline prosecutors have to file charges. In Florida, the state has three years to bring a third degree felony like domestic battery by strangulation and two years for a misdemeanor battery. A strangulation conviction carries up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The woman went to police on September 29 to report what happened on August 28. The arrest report says she gave detectives photos of her injuries with time stamps from that same morning. Detectives were also told about possible video footage connected to the incident.
Waiting is also common for women who have been hurt by a partner. In a survey of domestic violence victims published through the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs, only about half had reported their most recent incident to police. The most common reasons they gave for staying quiet were fear of revenge or more violence, shame or embarrassment, and believing the incident would be seen as too minor. A National Domestic Violence Hotline survey found that two thirds or more of women surveyed feared police would not believe them or do anything. Some women need time to process what happened, get somewhere safe and find their footing before they walk into a police station, especially when the man involved is someone they shared a home with.
The request not to prejudge also sits next to something Ross posted himself. The day after the alleged attack, he shared security camera footage to his Instagram story of the friend who came to pick his girlfriend up. He captioned it “When u see this face, you know it’s bad,” followed by laughing and crying emojis. The story has since been deleted.
The statement does not mention Ross’s history. In 2017, he pleaded no contest to kidnapping and assault charges after he and his bodyguard were accused of holding two groundskeepers against their will at his house outside Atlanta. One of the men said he was beaten with a pistol. Ross was sentenced to probation.
A judge set Ross’s bond at $4,000 on the strangulation charge and $1,000 on the battery charge, and he bonded out later Thursday. His arraignment is set for October 22.
