The woman accused of firing 20 shots from an AR-15-style rifle at the gate of Rihanna’s Beverly Hills-area residence while the singer, her partner, A$AP Rocky, their three young children, and Rihanna’s mother were on the property appeared in court on Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.
Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, 35, appeared in a yellow jail uniform with a waist shackle and entered the plea through her public defender. Ortiz was previously charged with one count of attempted murder, 10 counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, and three counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling. She could face life in prison if convicted as charged.
Assistant Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott argued against Ortiz’s requested reduction in bail, calling the incident “an extremely dangerous deliberate shooting in occupied homes.” He said the shooting lasted several seconds and could have been deadly.
“The defendant drove to the victim’s residence, positioned her vehicle, and fired approximately 20 rounds from an AR-style rifle into a residence where multiple adults and children were present,” Bott said. “This was calculated conduct. She brought a loaded rifle, ammunition, and even a disguise in the form of a wig, which demonstrates planning.”
Bott said that Ortiz showed “a willingness to use a high-powered rifle in a residential neighborhood, putting numerous lives at risk. This is the kind of conduct that could easily have resulted in multiple homicides.”
Witnesses to the March 8 shooting reported seeing a white Tesla Model 3 with a paper license plate fleeing the scene. A police helicopter quickly located the vehicle, leading to Ortiz’s arrest. Investigators later found six bullet holes in the vehicle gate at Rihanna’s home, along with a seventh in a pedestrian gate, court documents obtained by Rolling Stone confirm. Inside the property, police found three bullet holes in a wooden fence covered by tall hedges.
The Los Angeles County district attorney, Nathan Hochman, previously said Rihanna and A$AP Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, were inside an Airstream trailer parked in the driveway outside the main house when Ortiz opened fire. No one was injured.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 February 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 is a licensed speech pathologist in California. In a court filing ahead of the Wednesday court hearing, Cherise Burns, the 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.”
At the end of the Wednesday hearing, Judge Theresa McGonigle remanded Ortiz back into custody with her bail kept at $1.875 million. The judge also barred Ortiz from practicing speech pathology. “She’s prohibited at this time,” the judge said in the packed courtroom in downtown Los Angeles.
Ortiz was issued a speech-language pathology license on April 16, 2016, court records confirm. It’s set to expire June 30, 2027.
Holzman and Hughes at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.Courtesy of Ekko Astral
Holzman and Hughes in Brooklyn, May 2026.Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone
