The woman accused of firing 20 shots from an AR-15-style rifle at Rihanna’s Beverly Hills-area home appeared in court Wednesday and pushed back against her public defender’s request that the criminal case be suspended for a competency evaluation.
Ivanna Ortiz, 35, told the court she wanted to move forward and set a probable cause hearing as soon as possible, despite her court-appointed lawyer raising doubt about her mental capacity. Los Angeles County Judge Shannon Cooley ruled there was not enough evidence to override Ortiz’s wishes, but she offered to assist the defense by signing an order to obtain records from the jail.
“A competency hearing is mandated only if there’s objective evidence of a defendant’s incompetence, regardless of [defense] counsel’s subjective opinion,” Judge Cooley said. “Voluntary barriers to communication with counsel or a doctor are not sufficient,” she added, indicating Ortiz stopped cooperating with her attorney before Wednesday’s hearing.
Ortiz has pleaded not guilty to one count of attempted murder, 10 counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, and three counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling. Prosecutors say she drove to Rihanna’s home on March 8 and fired the rounds while the property was occupied by the singer, her partner A$AP Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, the couple’s three young children, and Rihanna’s mother.
According to a police report obtained by Rolling Stone, Rihanna and Mayers were inside an Airstream trailer parked outside the home when Rihanna heard “approximately ten loud sounds like something banging on metal.” She opened the curtains, “observed bullet holes in the windshield directly in front of where she had been standing,” then “grabbed Rakim out of bed, told him they were being shot at, and pushed both of them to the ground,” the report said.
“They shooting at us,” the superstar singer allegedly said as she woke Mayers and forced him to the floor. The couple then ran into the garage and rushed to secure their children and staff, the report said.
Ortiz sat quietly in the courtroom Wednesday wearing an orange jail uniform and handcuffs. She spoke only when addressed by the judge. “Ms. Ortiz, you’re not willing to waive time and want to set your preliminary hearing. Is that where you’re still at?” the judge asked.
“Still at,” Ortiz replied, shaking her head in the affirmative. As she walked back into custody, she turned and smiled at the gallery. The next hearing in the case is set for May 19. Ortiz’s lawyer said he also planned to file a motion requesting a delay based on “voluminous discovery.”
At a prior hearing, Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott called the incident “an extremely dangerous deliberate shooting in occupied homes.” He said the shooting lasted several seconds and could have been deadly.
“This was calculated conduct,” Bott said. “She brought a loaded rifle, ammunition, and even a disguise in the form of a wig, which demonstrates planning.”
Bott said Ortiz showed “a willingness to use a high-powered rifle in a residential neighborhood, putting numerous lives at risk. This is the kind of conduct that could easily have resulted in multiple homicides.”
Witnesses to the March 8 shooting reported seeing a white Tesla Model 3 with a paper license plate fleeing the scene. A police helicopter quickly located the vehicle, leading to Ortiz’s arrest. Investigators later found six bullet holes in the vehicle gate at Rihanna’s home, along with a seventh in a pedestrian gate, court documents obtained by Rolling Stone confirm. Inside the property, police found three bullet holes in a wooden fence covered by tall hedges.
Before the shooting, Ortiz allegedly posted erratically on social media, addressing and tagging Rihanna directly. “Listen, Rihanna. When you die, God is taking me to my future. You want to kill me. Shut the fuck up,” she said in a YouTube video titled “Praying Woman’s Journal, Day 39,” posted on Jan. 4, 2026. A follow-up Facebook post from Feb. 23 reportedly read, “@badgalriri — Are you there? ’Cause I was waiting for your AIDS 5-head self to say something to me directly instead of sneaking around like you’re talking to me where I’m not at.”
Ortiz worked as a licensed speech pathologist in California prior to the incident. In a filing obtained by Rolling Stone, an executive officer of California’s Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology petitioned the court for an order requiring that Ortiz “cease and desist from practicing speech-language pathology during the pendency of this criminal action, through sentencing and appeal.” A different judge granted the request.
Ortiz’s license, granted on April 16, 2016, is set to expire June 30, 2027, court filings confirm.
