Victim’s Family Sues Trump-Branded Resort Over Deadly Shootout Involving Rapper
A rapper and his entourage involved in a deadly South Florida shootout are named along with the owners of the property near where the shootout happened and prominent Miami-area developers as defendants in a negligence lawsuit over the slaying.
In 2019, a rapper named NBA YoungBoy was in Sunny Isles Beach, north of Miami Beach, to perform at a Rolling Loud hip-hop concert. He stayed at the Trump International Beach Resort.
Mohamad Jradi, 43, had just finished work for Hertz car rental near the hotel and was sitting in a gray van in a parking lot. Someone in a black Cadillac Escalade drove past and started shooting. NBA YoungBoy’s entourage pulled out guns and shot back. Several people were hit, and a stray bullet from one of the rapper's security guards traveled 1,000 feet and hit Jradi in the head, killing him, according to an investigators' timeline cited by WSVN.
The Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office declined to file charges because under the state’s Stand Your Ground law, NBA YoungBoy was deemed to be acting in self-defense, according to WSVN. The rapper expressed remorse and offered to pay for Jradi's funeral.
In May, Ali M. Jradi, the personal representative for Jradi’s estate, filed a lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against the rapper, whose legal name is Kentrell DeSean Gaulden; his business entity, YoungBoy Never Broke Again; and Osama Eugene Manuel, NBA YoungBoy’s security worker.
Alleging negligence, he also sued the resort’s operating company, 18001 Holdings LLC, and several LLCs tied to developers Michael and Gil Dezer, who have developed multiple high-rise projects branded with the Trump name.
The plaintiff alleged that there were “reasonably foreseeable criminal attacks or other dangerous conditions on the property causing harm to decedent” and “the premises was in a high crime area.”
The complaint alleges that the resort failed to provide sufficient security, to assess the foreseeability of violent crimes, and “to keep unwanted and dangerous person(s) off the premises.” It also failed to provide adequate surveillance cameras or gates, according to the suit.
Isabel Alvarez, an attorney for the Dezer interests and an employee of Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., countered in June 7 court filings that the defendants didn't own, possess, control or manage the property where the shooting happened, where the shooters were located, where the victim was located when the shooting occurred, where the injury was sustained nor where the death occurred.
She also argued that the alleged crime was not reasonably foreseeable and was a targeted attack rather than an attack on the property.
In September 2020, NBA YoungBoy was picked up by police in Louisiana and jailed on unrelated gun charges from an incident where the rapper had been shooting a music video and police discovered 14 firearms, marijuana and hydrocodone.
The FBI was calling NBA YoungBoy's legal case “Operation Never Free Again,” according to internal documents obtained by XXL magazine. NBA YoungBoy's legal team is working to suppress evidence gathered during his Louisiana arrest, arguing that law enforcement personnel breached his Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
