Months of psychiatric evaluations ended with a ruling that Ivanna Lisette Ortiz is mentally fit to stand trial, and things moved fast after that.
A day later, a grand jury indicted the 36-year-old on 14 felony counts tied to the March shooting at A$AP Rocky and Rihanna’s Beverly Hills home, including attempted murder.
Ortiz pleaded not guilty in court. The judge then ordered her held on $2.6 million bail, according to an Associated Press report from Wednesday, Sept. 30.
The timing is the real story here. Prosecutors held grand jury sessions while Ortiz was still undergoing her evaluations, which let them skip California’s usual preliminary hearing process altogether. The result is a fast-tracked trial, though no date has been set yet.
The new indictment lists one count of attempted murder, 10 counts of assault with an assault weapon and three counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling or camper. If convicted, Ortiz faces life in prison.
The details of the alleged attack are still rough to read. Authorities say Ortiz drove all the way from Orlando to the couple’s Beverly Hills home, pointed an AR-15-style rifle out of her car window and fired at least 20 rounds.
Rihanna and Rocky were inside an Airstream camper on the property at the time. Police say bullets struck the Airstream, the main house and a neighbor’s home.
Their children, Rihanna’s mother and several staff members were also at the house, and somehow nobody was hurt.
This isn’t the first time Ortiz has denied the allegations. After the shooting, she was originally charged with attempted murder, assault with a semiautomatic firearm, shooting at an inhabited dwelling or camper and more, and she pleaded not guilty then too. The grand jury indictment now supersedes that original set of charges.
The district attorney’s office has made its position plain from day one. Opening fire in any populated neighborhood is extremely dangerous, puts lives at risk, and will be fully prosecuted,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said when the first charges were announced.
Hochman didn’t leave it there. “Thankfully, no one was injured in this shooting, but this careless violence will not be tolerated in our community,” he added. “Such shooters will find their next destination to be our jails and prisons.”
On the other side, Ortiz’s repeated not guilty pleas make it clear she intends to fight the case. The long stretch of psychiatric review also shows that questions about her mental state have hung over the proceedings since March, even with the court now clearing her to move forward.
For now, everyone is waiting on a trial date. With the preliminary hearing off the table, that date could arrive sooner than most cases of this size, and the events of that March night at Rihanna and Rocky’s home will be laid out in a courtroom when it does.
