Ashanti Wails on the Witness Stand

By ALEXANDRA SEMENOVA & JOHN SAKELOS

Grammy-winning recording artist Ashanti took the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday where she described feeling “disgusted and scared,” by a fan who has been accused of serially stalking the songstress since 2009.

Devar Hurd, 37, was on trial again for breaking restraining orders by contacting Ashanti and her sister Kanaesha “Shia” Douglas through Twitter despite strict court orders to refrain from interacting with Ashanti and her family.

The singer’s mother and manager, Tina Douglas, testified that he got her phone number from a Def Jam Records employee and harassed her with perverted text messages, including pictures of his erection. He told Douglas that he was going to be her son-in-law.

The alleged stalker also photographed the family’s home in Westbury, Long Island and sent the photos to Ashanti’s mother claiming that he was at a neighbor’s house and requesting to come over, the prosecution says.

Hurd was arrested in 2009 for sending the lewd photographs. He was ordered to stay away from the singer but he violated the order of protection and is accused of resuming the harassment, showing up to an event for Kanaesha Douglas’s clothing company in 2012 and to Tina Douglas’s birthday at Phillipe Chow’s in 2013. Hurd tweeted the R&B singer over 600 times.

Hurd represented himself at the trial, and caused the judge to order a ten-minute break after yelling outlandish remarks at both the witnesses and the jurors. “They want to attack your intelligence today — they want to manipulate you,” he said.

Ashanti complained to the courtroom that Hurd’s stalking has been a huge inconvenience when asked if she took additional precautions after his first arrest. She spent large amounts of money on hiring security to travel with her to New York. “My livelihood had to stop and it is unfair,” she said.