Judge keeps rapper Cardi B away from bartenders who say she attacked them

A New York judge banned rapper Cardi B this Friday from having any contact with the two women bartenders who accuse her of attacking them during a heated brawl at a strip club last August, according to local media.

Belcalis Almanzar - her real name - age 26 and being tried on charges of assault and reckless endangerment, attended this Friday the first session of her trial at a court in Queens that was closely followed by the media.

Her hearing had been scheduled for last Monday but she didn’t show up because of a “previously scheduled commitment,” according to her attorney Jeff Kern, something Judge Sean Dunn considered “not acceptable” and for which he threatened to issue an arrest warrant for her if she didn’t appear this Friday.

According to the New York Daily News, the prosecutors asked that a bail of $2,500 (2,200 euros) be set for the woman, but her attorney noted that she has no criminal record and she had appeared in court when so required.

Cardi B and her group supposedly attacked by throwing bottles, chairs and hookahs in the Angel’s Strip Club at the sisters Baddie G and Jade, with whom the artist had a long argument since she believed the latter was having an affair with her husband.

The judge issued a protection order for the sisters, according to which Cardi B was banned from having physical contact with them, nor can she contact them on the Internet. She was then released without bail.

The popular rap artist appeared in court extravagantly attired: her hair was tinted with rainbow colors and she wore a hat and sunglasses, a dark fur coat with pants and high-heeled boots.

Cardi B, who on the same Friday was nominated for five Grammy Awards and during the same week announced her separation from the rapper Offset, father of her daughter, passed in front of the photographers who were waiting for her and jokingly asked them, “Am I famous?” People magazine reported.