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9th District affirms aggravated menacing case stemming from violent song lyrics posted to Facebook

TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter

Published: May 23, 2018

The 9th District Court of Appeals recently upheld the aggravated menacing conviction of a man who sang threatening song lyrics about the mother of his child that were posted on Facebook.

Ramone Gilbert was sentenced in Lorain Municipal Court to 180 days in jail and a $200 fine after a bench trial.

The court suspended 106 days of the sentence and granted him 74 days of jail-time credit. He was placed on intensive supervised probation for two years and ordered to have no contact with R.C., the woman who was the subject of the song.

According to case summary, Gilbert and R.C. were involved in a custody dispute when he wrote a song and performed it in a music video with his brother, O.G., who played a ukulele. The song was filmed by a third person, and O.G. posted it on his Facebook page, which was seen by R.C. and then reported to police.

The song included lyrics about Gilbert kicking in the door to his “baby momma’s house,” tying her up with her kids and the “dude she started sleepin’ with,” dousing them with gasoline and lighting up a cigarette.

The song’s refrain is the line, “If you f**k me over, I’m gonna kill you.”

R.C. is not mentioned specifically by name in the song.

On appeal, Gilbert argued the state did not present sufficient evidence to prove the statements in the song were made directly to R.C. or were made to people he knew or should have known would communicate them to R.C.

The appellate court disagreed.

R.C. testified at trial that she feared for her life after her cousin showed her the music video on O.G.’s Facebook page on a cell phone while they were at her mother’s house in Lorain.

“She testified that she is Mr. Gilbert’s only `baby mom’ and they were on `bad terms’ with each other at the time, as they were involved in a pending custody case,” 9th District Judge Thomas Teodosio stated in his majority opinion. “R.C. testified that she has friends and family who have access to both Mr. Gilbert’s and O.G.’s Facebook pages and that she would expect to receive any messages posted on those two pages.”

Gilbert took the stand to say that as an artist and a performer, he did not write the song about anyone in particular. He admitted R.C. is the mother of his only children, but claimed the lyrics in the song are just a metaphor.

“The baby mom in the song is basically the world, like, the pain that I’m going through,” he told the trial court. “You know what I’m saying? And with that being said, the metaphor being that as the baby mom. When I said, `kick the door in,’ that’s just me just kicking away all my problems and my pains and how, how everything is going on in my life.”

Gilbert also admitted he intended to post the song online when it was finished but that R.C. is “blocked” from his Facebook. He added that he commonly posts videos on his Facebook page “saying this and that” and was unaware his brother – who had not blocked R.C. -- was going to post the video.

Judge Teodosio found Gilbert’s arguments to be without merit.

“The (trial) court determined that Mr. Gilbert knew the video would be posted, just like the brothers’ other videos, and that Mr. Gilbert knew R.C. would eventually see it,” he stated.

Appellate judges Julie Schafer and Jennifer Hensal concurred.

The case is cited State v. Gilbert, 2018-Ohio-1883.


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