Afroman’s Defamation Trial Is Going About As Well For The Deputies As Their Original Raid Did

Free Speech

from the lemon-pound-cake dept

We’ve been following the saga of Afroman (real name Joseph Foreman) and the Adams County Sheriff’s Office for a few years now, and I’m delighted to report that the defamation trial is currently underway and it is delivering everything you could possibly hope for, starting with this absolutely astounding suit that he’s wearing in court and on the stand (as well as in recent videos):

For those who need a refresher: back in 2022, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio conducted a raid on Afroman’s home with a warrant for drug trafficking and — hilariously — kidnapping. (Kidnapping. Afroman.) The search turned up a couple of joints, some legal hemp, and a vape pen. No arrests were made. No charges were filed. The warrant itself appeared to have been sloppily assembled from boilerplate, with the kidnapping allegation looking a whole lot like someone forgot to delete an irrelevant paragraph before submitting it to a judge.

What the deputies did manage to accomplish was breaking Afroman’s door and gate, apparently pocketing $400 in cash (later explained away as a “miscount”), and getting captured on Afroman’s home security cameras doing a series of things that made them look absolutely ridiculous — including, famously, cautiously approaching a lemon cake sitting in a glass container on the kitchen counter.

The deputies, naturally, tried to cut power and unplug the security cameras during the raid — because surely that’s what the good guys do. But they didn’t get to them fast enough. Afroman took that footage and did exactly what you’d hope a musician would do: he turned it into a pair of songs — “Lemon Pound Cake” and “Will You Help Me Repair My Door” — complete with music videos featuring the actual raid footage. The videos went massively viral. In fact, here, watch them again:

And then the deputies did what we’ve come to expect from law enforcement officers who love power but hate the accountability that very occasionally accompanies it: They sued Afroman, claiming his use of their images in his music videos caused them “emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation, and humiliation.”

At the time, we noted that this lawsuit was profoundly stupid and predicted it would only make things worse for the deputies. Three years later, the trial has begun, and I am pleased to report: it is making things so much worse for the deputies.

Let’s start with the visuals. As mentioned above, Afroman showed up to court in a full American flag suit. This is a man who understands exactly what kind of stage he’s been handed, and he’s performing brilliantly. If you want to see the entirety of his testimony, that’s on YouTube too, and it’s glorious (click through as they’ve disabled embeds on that one).

Legal reporter Meghann Cuniff has also been posting astounding video clips from the courtroom to Instagram, and they are a gift, so we’ll include a few of the best cuts here.

First, here’s Afroman on the stand making the single most devastating argument in the entire case, which is also the most obvious one: none of this would have happened if they hadn’t raided his house in the first place.

That’s it. That’s the whole case. The deputies created the raid. The raid created the footage. The footage created the songs. The songs created the “emotional distress.” The lawsuit created this trial, which is now creating a whole new wave of viral content about these deputies. Every single thing these officers are complaining about is something they set in motion themselves.

When the plaintiffs’ lawyers kept pushing him about how unfair he was being to these poor deputies, Afroman’s response was wonderful:

Don’t miss the “you’re welcome” at the end of that one.

Then there’s Afroman explaining what should be pretty obvious to anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the First Amendment: this is his freedom of speech, he makes humorous songs for entertainment, and — oh yeah — he needed to pay for the door and gate these deputies broke.

But the real fun starts when the deputies themselves take the stand. Sgt. Randolph Lee “Randy” Walters Jr. managed to admit, on the witness stand, that many of the things people have been saying about him are statements of opinion rather than fact.

For those keeping score at home: opinion is a complete defense to a defamation claim. When one of the plaintiffs in a defamation case casually concedes on the stand that the allegedly defamatory statements are opinion, that’s… not great for the plaintiffs.

And then there’s Deputy Shawn Cooley, who is apparently quite upset that people have been calling him “Lemon Pound Cake.” Yes, a law enforcement officer is in court, under oath, complaining about a nickname derived from the fact that he was filmed treating a dessert as a potential threat during a drug raid that turned up essentially nothing.

But wait, it gets better. Afroman’s defense team called Cooley’s ex-wife to the stand, where she testified that Cooley knew the song was a joke and even made fun of it himself.

So we’ve got a deputy claiming severe emotional distress over a nickname, while his own ex-wife is testifying that he was laughing about it. Outstanding.

As Defector noted in its recap of the trial’s early days:

This suit is certain to just make things worse for the department. Afroman’s videos may have gone viral but they were mostly contained, their reach, outside of the initial wave of virality, more than likely limited to Cincinnati, its surrounding areas, and whatever colleges at which Afroman goes around performing. But the trial has brought all new visibility to these videos, putting Afroman on the brink of going platinum again. There is no winning here for the cops, no matter how many distressed tears you try to pull out of these officers.

We called this three years ago when the lawsuit was filed. The deputies were upset that Afroman’s videos made them look foolish, so they filed a lawsuit that would guarantee far more people would see those videos and learn their names. The Streisand Effect remains undefeated.

There’s a serious point underneath all the absurdity. These are public servants who conducted a search of a private citizen’s home under a warrant, found essentially nothing, broke his property, possibly took his money, tried to disable his cameras, and then — when he had the audacity to use his own security footage to make fun of them — decided to use the legal system to try to shut him up and get paid for their hurt feelings.

The message they were trying to send is the same one law enforcement sends in so many of these cases: we can do whatever we want to you, and if you embarrass us for it, we’ll make your life even harder. It’s the same impulse that leads cops to arrest people for filming them, or to seize phones during protests, or to charge people with “resisting arrest” when there’s no underlying crime. The whole point is to make the cost of accountability so high that people stop trying.

But Afroman showed up in an American flag suit and explained, calmly and clearly, that he makes funny songs, that these officers raided his house for no good reason, that they broke his stuff, and that he has every right to talk about it. And the deputies’ own testimony is undermining their case in real time.

As Defector’s recap put it:

As for Afroman himself, this may not be Uncle Luke on trial or anything, but it is another case in which people must decide how much they actually like freedom of speech, as well as whether or not the police are justified to behave however they like under the auspices of “doing their job.” Actually, he explains it a lot better than I could. It’s a trial about a principle and fighting unfairness, with some funny videos making it all that much more entertaining. Justice the Afroman way is a lot more satisfying than what the system usually gives.

It sure is. The deputies wanted to punish Afroman for making them look bad. Instead, they gave him a bigger platform, a better story, and a courtroom full of cameras capturing every moment of their continued self-own. If you wanted a textbook example of why you shouldn’t use a lawsuit to silence criticism of your own embarrassing behavior, this is it.

Though I suppose we should thank the Adams County Sheriff’s Office for one thing: If they hadn’t filed this lawsuit, we wouldn’t have gotten to watch Afroman testify in an American flag suit while a deputy complains about being called Lemon Pound Cake. Sometimes the legal system truly delivers amazing moments.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, adams county, adams county sheriff's department, afroman, defamation, emotional distress, free speech, lemon pound cake, randy walters jr., shawn cooley