sheriff

Afroman testified Tuesday in a civil lawsuit brought by seven members of an Ohio sheriff’s office who allege he used their likenesses without permission in music videos and on merchandise and spread lies about them after they raided his home in August 2022.

The fault, the “Because I Got High” rapper maintained, was not his. On Wednesday, the jury was deliberating the case.

The 51-year-old, whose real name is Joseph Edgar Foreman, said on the stand Tuesday that he was in the right, according to local station WCPO Channel 9 in Cincinnati.

“The whole raid was a mistake. All of this is their fault,” Foreman testified, taking the stand wearing sunglasses with American flag lenses and a red, white and blue suit and matching tie made of fabric recalling the American flag. “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, nothing.”

Officers were acting in 2022 on a warrant showing probable cause that drugs and drug paraphernalia would be found on the property. The warrant also alleged that trafficking and kidnapping had happened there. No evidence of a crime was found, and no charges were filed. Foreman wasn’t home during the raid but was able to see at least part of it via a video recorded by his ex-wife and footage captured on his home security system before law enforcement turned off those cameras.

It was that footage that was used in the various videos the rapper subsequently posted, including a music video for the song “Lemon Pound Cake,” which he wrote about the raid.

Officers tore down his door, he said, and damaged his house, taking money, vape pens and a small amount of marijuana. There was a discrepancy about the amount of money taken and returned to the rapper, which seemed to be a point of contention linked to whether he was misrepresenting what the deputies did during the raid.

“After they left, I had the right to kick the can and to do what I had to do to repair the damage they brought to my house. Yes, I did,” Foreman said. “I have freedom of speech. I’m a rapper. I entertain.”

His testimony came on the second day of the trial, after the deputies took the stand the first day and testified that though the raid wasn’t perfect, Foreman had been spreading lies about them for years since it occurred. Deputy Lisa Phillips, whose gender identity had been called into question in Foreman’s videos and social media posts, cried on the stand as some of those videos were played for the court.

Footage with a song called “Licc’em Low Lisa” showed Foreman saying he thought he would “crack some musical jokes” in the wake of the raid, then going to comfort a crying actor who resembled Phillips. “I didn’t know they hurt you that bad. … I was just having fun with a bad situation.” The same video showed the actor engaging in sexual activity with another woman.

In their lawsuit, WCPO said, the deputies said the posts and videos caused them “humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment and loss of reputation” and made it difficult to do their law enforcement work.

In an amicus brief, however, the ACLU argued that the deputies’ lawsuit was a “classic entry into the SLAPP suit genre,” referring to a type of lawsuit that seeks to discourage criticism of public officials.

Los Angeles County leaders are demanding the Sheriff’s Department ramp up safety measures within the jail system as inmate deaths continue to mount.

Ten people died inside L.A. County jails in the first two months of this year, putting the county on track for another record-setting year of in-custody deaths. Autopsies to determine causes for all the deaths are still pending.

County supervisors voted 4 to 0 on Tuesday on a motion, crafted by Supervisor Janice Hahn, requiring the Sheriff Department take a series of steps to reduce inmate deaths, including increasing access to the overdose reversal drug Naloxone, more closely monitoring cameras and beefing up safety checks.

“If we don’t address this now, we will see another record year of deaths in the County jails — a record we do not want to repeat,” the motion stated.

The death rate has eclipsed the pace of 2025, which saw nine deaths by the end of February. The year ended with 46 in-custody deaths, a jump from the 32 reported deaths in 2024.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger abstained from the vote, arguing the county could not address the death rate without building a new facility.

“We must be honest about the limitations of facilities that were never designed to house today’s population,” she said in a statement. “I have consistently called for a modern replacement facility focused on treatment and rehabilitation because that is where the real solution lies.”

Sheriff Robert Luna conceded this month that 2026 was “not off to a good start.” He framed the challenge as due partially to the fact that the county was booking people who were older and sicker than prior populations and needed more intensive care than could be offered by the jail system. Four in 5 people face a mental or physical health issue, the department said.

“Every time I get notified that someone in my care has passed away, it’s like a kick in the groin,” Luna said.

The department said in a statement that it has “taken aggressive action to prevent overdoses and violence,” but believes “no jail system can eliminate all risks when people enter custody already critically ill.”

The supervisors voted more than four years ago to shut down Men’s Central Jail, a downtown facility notorious for dangerous and deteriorating conditions, without building a replacement. Since then, inspectors continued to find a litany of problems inside the jail, including mildew and lack of food.

“The fact is that we need to close down Men’s Central,” said Peggy Lee Kennedy, one of several callers to the board meeting who urged the county to speed up the closure. “Why are all these people living there with major mental health issues instead of getting the help they really truly need?”

The county continues to face intense scrutiny from the state over the conditions inside the jail. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued the Sheriff’s Department in September alleging that inmates “are forced to live in filthy cells with broken and overflowing toilets, infestations of rats and roaches, and no clean water for drinking or bathing.”

Bonta alleged inmates were barred from mental and medical care, leading to a “shocking rate of deaths inside the jails, many of which are caused by preventable circumstances, such as overdoses, suicides, or violence among incarcerated persons.”

Times staff writer Salvador Hernandez contributed reporting.