Rihanna shooting suspect fit to stand trial

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 by a judge on Tuesday to stand trial.

Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, 36, of Orlando, Florida, has pleaded not guilty to trying to murder Rihanna and to 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 the singing superstar and A$AP Rocky were in. Shots also struck the wall of a nursery where their small children were at the time.

“Criminal proceedings are reinstated,” Judge Maria Cavalluzzi said at a very brief hearing in Los Angeles County court after months of psychiatric evaluations.

Ortiz appeared behind glass in a custody area of the courtroom, wearing yellow jail clothes and handcuffs. She didn’t speak during the hearing. She could get life in prison if convicted of all the charges.

There was no direct discussion of the mental evaluations in court, and 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.

Attorneys for both sides declined comment outside court after the hearing.