Megan Thee Stallion simply received authorized backup from one of many largest names in trendy courtroom historical past: the identical powerhouse legal professional who helped take down Donald Trump.

Roberta Kaplan, the civil rights lawyer who represented author E. Jean Carroll in her defamation and sexual assault lawsuits towards Trump, has stepped into Megan’s nook with a blistering amicus curiae transient filed in federal courtroom.

She’s backing Megan’s combat towards Texas blogger Milagro “Milagro Gramz” Cooper, who was discovered answerable for spreading a faux, sexually express AI-generated video of the rapper.

Kaplan doesn’t mince phrases. She argues that Cooper’s conduct, reposting and selling a pornographic deepfake of Megan to her 1000’s of followers, shouldn’t be “free speech.”

“This case demonstrates how technological advances can amplify familiar forms of online harm, including harm based on sexually explicit images. Deep-fake sexual imagery does not contribute to public debate; it reproduces patterns of intimidation and degradation that the law has long deemed unprotected,” Roberta Kaplan defined.

Kaplan says it’s harassment, plain and easy. And below Florida legislation, that form of abuse has no First Amendment safety. The submitting marks one other chapter in Kaplan’s lengthy marketing campaign to carry highly effective and reckless folks accountable for weaponizing lies.

She’s the identical legal professional who secured two main defamation verdicts towards Trump on behalf of Carroll, totaling more than $83 million.

In that case, jurors determined Trump acted with malice when he smeared Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault. A federal appeals court upheld the verdict last year, cementing it as one of the most important defamation rulings in decades.

Now, Kaplan is making it clear that digital defamation, particularly when fueled by AI, deserves the identical remedy.

In her transient, she compares deepfakes to different banned types of abuse like revenge p### or baby sexual exploitation supplies, saying all of them use know-how as a “mechanism of harm.”

The connection between the Carroll and Megan circumstances runs deeper than simply Kaplan’s signature. Both heart on girls pressured to combat in public: one towards a former president, the opposite towards a YouTube gossip blogger.

Both girls endured on-line harassment and disbelief earlier than juries in the end sided with them and the victories hinge on the identical authorized basis: defamation legislation’s recognition that free speech doesn’t shield deliberate, damaging falsehoods.

Megan Thee Stallion filed her defamation swimsuit in 2024 after Cooper repeatedly focused her on-line, pushing false narratives and amplifying the deepfake clip that claimed to indicate Megan in a sexual act.

Megan’s crew mentioned the posts triggered emotional misery, profession fallout, and relentless public humiliation. In December, a Miami jury agreed, finding Cooper liable for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

At trial, Megan Thee Stallion testified that the faux video wrecked her psychological well being.

Her supervisor described her breaking down and crying after seeing the clip, whereas her psychologist recognized her with post-traumatic stress dysfunction from the incident.

“I genuinely did not care if I lived or died,” she advised jurors.

The jury awarded Megan roughly $75,000, which was later lowered barely after post-trial motions, however Cooper nonetheless known as it “a win,” bragging that it wasn’t a “multimillion-dollar fine.”

That perspective, Kaplan argues, is precisely why an injunction is important: to cease repeat habits that continues to inflict hurt lengthy after a verdict. Kaplan’s submitting notes that courts have at all times drawn a line between speech that informs and speech that terrorizes.

Kaplan’s involvement suggests the Megan Thee Stallion case might set a benchmark for a way deepfakes and on-line harassment are dealt with legally.

The decide in Miami is anticipated to rule quickly on Megan’s request for an injunction to completely block Cooper from selling related content material. If granted, it could set one of many first main precedents tying deepfake abuse to cyberstalking legislation.

“Maybe I am going through all of this because there’s another woman out there that may be a victim and she sees me going through it, and she sees me come out on the other side and it may give her the courage or the strength to speak up and say, this happened to me and I’m not going to be scared of you. I am not going to be intimidated by you,” Megan mentioned in the course of the trial.

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