The rapper Rick Ross was arrested in Miami on Thursday on domestic violence charges, including battery by strangulation, according to court records.
Mr. Ross, whose legal name is William Leonard Roberts, surrendered himself voluntarily on Thursday morning and entered a not guilty plea. He was released on $5,000 bail.
In addition to battery by strangulation, a felony, he also faces a misdemeanor battery charge.
The arrest stemmed from an episode on Aug. 28, when Mr. Ross’s girlfriend at the time, who is identified only as “JK” in charging documents, told the police that he woke her up “enraged” because she had been tagged in a photograph on Instagram and proceeded to slap her in the face.
The violence continued throughout that morning, according to the documents.
Mr. Ross, 50, accused her of being in a relationship with someone else, and struck her every time she denied the allegations, including several times on the chest. He then choked her “to the point that she could not breathe” by grabbing the collar of her hooded sweatshirt “and twisting it,” according to the charging document. Mr. Ross also grabbed her ponytail and slammed her against a wall before hitting her in the face, causing her lip to bleed, she told the police.
After Mr. Ross pushed her to the floor and attempted to spray her with water from a shower head, the woman was able to escape the house, the documents said. She called a friend to come pick her up but the friend was “turned away” by Mr. Ross. The woman waited for Mr. Ross to leave the house, then gathered her belongings and left.
The two had been living together for about year before the reported episode, according to court documents.
While the victim is not fully identified in the police report, People magazine reported that Jazzma Kendrick, a model and content creator, posted photographs on Instagram over the weekend that showed injuries that she said were caused by Mr. Ross, including a swollen lip. A caption with the images read, “the day Rick busted my lip and the day I left.”
“He saw a punching a bag,” she wrote.
People reported that the couple had been together since at least August 2025.
An arraignment hearing was scheduled for Oct. 22. A lawyer listed for Mr. Ross did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Ms. Kendrick also could not be immediately reached.
Mr. Ross, known for hits like “Hustlin” and “Money in the Grave,” a collaboration with Drake, was charged in 2015 with kidnapping, aggravated battery and aggravated assault after two of his employees accused Mr. Ross and a bodyguard of pistol-whipping them at Mr. Ross’s estate in Fayetteville, Ga. Mr. Ross and the bodyguard reached a plea deal in 2017, pleading no contest to misdemeanor kidnapping and assault. They were sentenced to five years probation.
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