LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman accused of spraying bullets at Rihanna and A$AP Rocky’s home, hitting a trailer the celebrity couple was inside and a nursery their kids were in, was found mentally competent to stand trial by a judge on Tuesday.
Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, 36, of Orlando Florida, has pleaded not guilty to trying to murder the singing superstar, plus more than a dozen other felony charges stemming from the shooting in March. No one was injured,
but bullets tore through an Airstream trailer that Rihanna and A$AP Rocky were in at the time. Shots also struck the wall of a nursery their small children were in.
At a brief hearing in Los Angeles County court, Judge Maria Cavalluzzi issued the competency ruling after psychiatric evaluations for Ortiz.
There was no direct discussion in court of the details of the mental evaluations, and the case documents that include such details have been sealed. Ortiz has been returned to the regular criminal court process, which had been suspended shortly after it began. She was ordered to report for a hearing on Wednesday.
Outside court after the hearing, attorneys for both sides declined comment.
Police and prosecutors allege that on March 8, Ortiz pulled up in a Tesla to the Beverly Hills-area property of the singing superstar and her rapper partner, pointed an AR-15 style rifle out the window and sprayed at least 20 bullets toward the property and a neighboring house.
Investigators found bullet holes in the trailer and on the exterior wall of the home’s second-floor nursery, where the three kids were with their nanny.
Investigators said that after her arrest later that day, Ortiz told them: “I wasn’t attempting murder.”
Ortiz is charged with 10 counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, one for each of the people on the two properties. She’s also charged with three counts of shooting at an occupied vehicle or dwelling.
Ortiz had no prior police record, authorities said. Public records show she had been a licensed speech pathologist for more than a decade.
Authorities have not discussed a motive or described any connection between her and Rihanna.
A nine-time Grammy Award winner, Rihanna has 14 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “We Found Love,” “Work,” “Umbrella” and “Disturbia.”
