Ashanti’s Stalker Exercises Constitutional Right to Continue Harassing Her, Says He’s No Worse Than Anthony Weiner

Ashanti (Photo: Getty Images)

The trial against Ashanti’s stalker is coming close to wrapping up, but not before it veers into more and more austere circumstances.

Devar Hurd, who was already convicted once in 2009 for sending a picture of his crotch to Ashanti’s mother, is charged with felony stalking. Because the Constitution is both our protector and our tormenter, Hurd is representing himself in the case. This means, on Wednesday, he was allowed to personally question Ashanti for about 30 minutes about the hundreds of sexually explicit tweets he sent to her.

“You violated the order of protection, you went to jail, you came out, and now you’re doing the same thing,” Ashanti told Hurd in court, according to Page Six. After Hurd’s 2009 conviction, he broke a restraining order by posing for a photo with Ashanti’s little sister.

Then, on Thursday, it was time for Hurd to make his summation. Page Six describes the two-hour speech as “rambling.” But the best part comes when he makes the highly convincing argument that he’s no worse than noted pariah Anthony Weiner.

“[Weiner] was in a situation like this where he sent sexually explicit tweets to six different women. No one came and ran down on him and arrested him,” Hurd said. “I didn’t even send no nude pics. I just talked some sexually explicit stuff from time to time. Why didn’t he get arrested for doing the same stuff?”

Former Congressman Weiner resigned from his seat in 2011 after he tweeted a picture of his junk. In the ensuing fallout, he admitted to having sexted “about six women over the last three years.” Then, in 2013, he dropped out of New York’s mayoral race after it was revealed he’d been sexting another woman under the alias “Carlos Danger” as recently as April of that year. Each instance was gross, but consensual.

Ashanti testified that she wasn’t even aware that Hurd had been tweeting her for months until a fan of hers pointed out that Hurd had tweeted a photo with her sister. In court, the prosecutor asked Ashanti how she’d felt in that moment.

“Disgusted,” she said. “I was afraid of what he was capable of.”

This is the third time this case has gone to trial. The first ended when a juror became sick during deliberation, the second trial resulted in a hung jury. This third trial could have been avoided altogether; had Hurd pleaded guilty he’d have received time served and been released from prison.

The jury is expected back in court Friday where it will continue to deliberate.

UPDATE: And the jury has come back with a guilty verdict.