If you help steal some dogs, but then return them, do you deserve the reward? The answer is about to be hashed out in court and will be starring Lady Gaga and one of her dognapper’s accomplices.
On Feb 24, 2021, Gaga’s dog walker, Ryan Fisher, was shot and critically injured while taking the megastar’s French bulldogs, Koji and Gustav, for a stroll in Hollywood. He was hospitalized and the pampered pooches were abducted. Two days later, Gaga took to Twitter to try to secure their safe return.
“My beloved dogs Koji and Gustav were taken in Hollywood two nights ago,” she wrote.“I will pay $500,000 for their safe return. If you bought or found them unknowingly, the reward is the same.”
About 80 minutes later, the stolen dogs were turned into a Los Angeles Police Department station by a woman named Jennifer McBride. But the hefty reward Lady Gaga offered for the dogs’ safe return was withheld until police confirmed that the good samaritan wasn’t involved in the heist.
Two months later, McBride was arrested and charged in connection with the animal abduction after police said she didn’t just find the mutts, but she knew the father of one of the suspects. Shooter James Howard Jackson pleaded no contest to a count of attempted murder and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Meanwhile, McBride pleaded no contest to her involvement in the robbery, according to CBS News. In December, she was convicted of one count of receiving stolen property and was handed a sentence of two years probation, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
However, McBride insists she should receive the whopping $500,000 reward since, after all, she did find and deliver the pups. She filed suit against Lady Gaga on Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing the Oscar nominee, whose legal name is Stefani Germanotta, of breach of contract and fraud. McBride further alleges that Gaga made the promise of a half-million-dollar reward in bad faith, luring McBride to come forward with the dogs and put herself in police crosshairs.
“This case is quite simple. Lady Gaga made a reward offer. … She desperately wanted her dogs returned and my client took action to fulfill Lady Gaga’s wish,” McBride’s lawyer, K.T. Tran, said in a statement to the Washington Post. “My client had absolutely no involvement in the theft of the dogs. She loves dogs and was glad to participate in their safe return. She is legally entitled to and deserves the reward.”
Lady Gaga has not made a public comment on McBride’sa lawsuit.
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