Lady Gaga Scores Major Legal Win Against Dognapping Accomplice
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Lady Gaga is officially off the hook for any reward money she promised in exchange for the safe return of her dogs two years after they were stolen.
On Monday, Oct. 2, a Los Angeles judge ruled that the 37-year-old pop star and actress does not need to pay out Jennifer McBride, one of the five suspects arrested and charged in connection with the crime.
The final decision comes over two years after the brutal assault and robbery–which left her assistant with gunshot wounds as well as a collapsed lung–and about eight months after McBride sued the "Rain on Me" singer over the reward money that she never received upon coming forward with the two bulldogs.
McBride was seeking the reward plus $1.5 million in additional damages, per court filings obtained by People.
This past July, judge Holly J. Fujie ruled McBride's complaint as "legally insufficient in its entirety" following her "involvement in the theft" and that she was "not entitled to thereafter benefit from their wrongdoing by seeking to enforce the contract."
Fujie's decision on Monday comes just shy of three weeks after McBride was given 20 days to amend her lawsuit, saying she was "in no way involved in the theft" and only "took possession" of the dogs to return them, per the documents, which the singer's legal team said "makes no sense."
Now, the court "finds that nothing alleged in the [first amended complaint] changes this conclusion," officially closing the case.
As Parade previously reported, in Feb. 2021, Lady Gaga's two bulldogs, Koji and Gustav, were stolen by two armed assailants who attacked and shot her dog walker, Ryan Fischer, while out in Hollywood, Calif.
Shortly after the news first broke, Lady Gaga offered a hefty reward with "no questions asked" to whoever returned her dogs, even writing on Instagram, "I will pay $500,000 for their safe return."
48 hours later, her two fur babies were recovered by a woman, later identified as McBride, who had a connection to the father of one of the men involved in the robbery. McBride was arrested for accessory attempted murder before pleading no contest to one count of receiving stolen property in Dec. 2022 and being sentenced to two years of probation, per the Los Angeles Times.
At the time of the brutal dognapping, McBride was dating fellow accomplice Harold White. White's son, Jaylin, was also involved in the robbery and shooting, as were two others identified as James Jackson and Lafayette Whaley.
Jackson, who reportedly was the one to fire the gun, pleaded no contest to attempted murder with great bodily injury and was sentenced to 21 years in prison last December. Because of his plea, lesser charges–including conspiracy to commit robbery, second-degree robbery, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and a felon carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle–were dropped.
Next: How Lady Gaga Is Keeping Tony Bennett's Legacy Alive: 'He'll Never Be Gone'
