Singer Ciara Harris‘s lawyer, Tanya Mitchell Graham, filed a response to Future‘s motion to dismiss Harris’s $15 million defamation and slander case against him for making false and harmful social media “tweets” about her.
In January, Harris filed a $15 million defamation, slender & libel lawsuit against Future, whose real name is Nayvadius Demun Wilburn, citing his social media postings that harmed her public image and her career.
Before filing the suit on January 21, Harris, 30, requested that Wilburn, 32, delete his January 4 tweets, but he refused, stating he did not “feel the need” to delete the tweets.
During a recent deposition, Ms. Mitchell Graham grilled Wilburn about the tweets.
Question: Okay. What about the other three tweets?
Answer: The other three tweets eventually got deleted. But at the time, I think they was left up.
Q: Why is that?
A: I didn’t feel the need at the time to take them down.
Q: Why not? You weren’t aware that it was impacting Ms. Harris… negatively?
A: My frustration wasn’t — it was all meant for Baby Wilburn. It wasn’t nothing to go against her. I never meant any harm towards her name.
But in her Complaint, Harris maintained that Future’s tweets were made with “actual malice” when he wrote, “This bitch has control problems,” after one of his last-minute demands to have parenting time with his son, Future Zahir Wilburn, 2.
According to the court documents, obtained by Sandrarose.com, whenever Wilburn made last minute demands for parenting time with his son, he cursed at Harris when his demands conflicted with her schedule and she suggested alternate dates within the same timeframe.
Wilburn often included his mother and his attorneys in their conversations about parenting time.
The court document portrays Wilburn as a controlling man-child who lacks effective communication skills and coping strategies.
The documents show Wilburn’s anger stems from the fact that he simply can’t control Harris.
“Evidence demonstrates that it was and remains the Defendant, not Plaintiff, who did not want to co-parent directly without becoming angry or without the assistance of his mother or attorney, Mitchell Graham wrote.”
During the deposition Wilburn struggled to explain why he falsely implied in a tweet that he was paying Harris $15K monthly for the child support.
“Moreover, Defendant intentionally tweeted the ‘fuckery for 15k a month’ to give the false impression that he was paying Plaintiff $15,000 per month in child support while Plaintiff outright denied him access to the minor child.”
Question: All right. What — what did you mean specifically by the statement? What is the 15K a month, what is that?
Wilburn: 15K a month is for the child support that she’s — uh, I felt like she wanted to request that I was, uh — she felt like she would be granted 15K or better — or more.
Q: All right. So the 15K is child support that you felt like she wanted?
A: That she told me that she wanted.
Q: And how did she tell you that she wanted $15,000 per month?
A: She, uh, told me face to face.
Q: Okay. And when was that?
A: It was, uh — if I’m not mistaken, somewhere around, like, uh — probably like end of 2014 or at the beginning of 2015, somewhere around there.
The documents note that while Harris put her career on hold to deliver and care for their newborn, Wilburn did not take a day off from his concert tour to be there when his son was delivered in California in 2014.
Within 4 months of his son’s birth, Wilburn had already moved on to his next sexual conquest (and potential baby mama #5), leaving Harris to raise their baby alone, without a father or financial support while she wasn’t earning an income.
It was during the sometimes contentious visitation conversations that Wilburn began to disparage Harris on social media, calling her a “bitch” and saying her career had flopped.
At one point during the deposition Wilburn said he didn’t care if his social media posts were harmful to Harris.
After the deposition, Wilburn voluntarily dismissed his frivolous countersuit.
Within four days of the dismissal, on June 17, gossip tabloid TMZ.com published an article from “sources” close to Wilburn, entitled, “Future: I Got My Kid … I Don’t Need To Sue Ciara Anymore.”
According to court documents, Wilburn gave the public the false impression that Harris’s defamation lawsuit in Georgia and the California child custody case were connected, and that Wilburn “got his kid.”
The article used the term “joint custody” as if to imply that there is a document that exists somewhere that states Wilburn has “joint physical custody” of his son.
In reality, on May 16, the court set a temporary visitation schedule so that both parties would know that Wilburn could have parenting time with his son twice per month.
No final decision has been rendered on child custody as the current order in California is only temporary.
Click below to read the court documents.
