The jury in the trial of Barbie Kardashian, who is charged with threatening to kill or cause serious harm to her mother and another person, retired Friday and has been sent home for the weekend and continue its deliberations Monday.
Ms Kardashian, 20, off no fixed abode, has pleaded not guilty to a total of 11 charges of threatening to kill her mother Maria Luque, and her former social care worker Michael Mannix, at Coovagh House, Limerick, a secure facility for troubled youths, on dates in 2020.
Ms Kardashian, who was born a male named Gabriel Alejandro Gentile, but identifies as female, changed her name by deed poll, and was granted a certificate by the Department of Social Protection, which recognises her gender as female, the jury heard.
In his closing speech Friday, defence barrister Mr Nicholas SC, said several witnesses involved in Ms Kardashian’s care at Coovagh House had given evidence that they were not immediately alarmed by her alleged threats.
The utterances of Ms Kardashian were “commonplace” in such a challenging work environment and “they were not taken seriously”, said Mr Nicholas.
Mr Nicolas said he accepted “ugly” “nasty” and “gruesome” words were uttered by his client about her mother and about staff, but he argued these were “not” of a “chilling” or “sinister” or “criminal” nature.
He said Ms Kardashian’s care workers did not log each alleged threat as significant events, and they did not immediately relay them to gardaí and “there was no evidence” Ms Kardashian had any history of assaulting anyone while a resident in Coovagh House from 2018-2020.
Mr Nicholas told the jury that Ms Kardashian “has a desire to shock, a desire to be the centre of attention” and her words had to be taken in this “context”.
Care setting
“Barbie Kardashian has had a terrible life, a horrible experience. She’s invited into a care setting, she’s told it’s a safe place, a nonjudgmental place, she is young, she is confused, she is turning 18, she takes the invitation and uses it to try to process things, and that promised safe place offered to a vulnerable, damaged kid, turns out to be ‘the dock’,” said Mr Nicholas.
He added, the prosecution was “all perfectly within the law, but I’m uncomfortable with it”.
“It reminds me of the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the character of the Child Catcher who would call out ‘Sweeties, sweeties’ to the children luring them on a promise - when in fact it was a cage.”
“That scene frightened me as a child, and this prosecution frightens me as an adult, and I ask you to not guilty verdicts on all the charges.”
Mr Nicholas accepted the accused told her officials at Coovagh of her plan to get a taxi to her mother’s house, overpower her and torture her with a knife, a screwdriver, and boiling water, before killing her - but he argued this was “all fantasy”.
Ms Kardashian told the meeting with her social care manager Jacqueline Bourke, also attended by her guardian ad litem, Orla Ryan: “If I got into (my mother’s) house I would run towards her and put the knife into her body and into her genitalia; the thing is, I would want to prolong my mum’s suffering for as long as possible”.
“I would stab her, but not in her heart or neck, I’d want to put her through lots of torture, fear and humiliation,” Ms Kardashian continued.
“I would bring a screwdriver to insert inside her genitalia because I am a woman and women rape using objects; it would definitely be a long protracted incident, I would want her to bleed out after death after a number of hours, by putting objects into her vagina, pouring boiling water into that area,” she said.
“I know that my mum is smaller than me, she is physically weak and she is frail, when I was living with her since I was nine or 10 I was stronger than her then and I know she would be overpowered by me.
“I would only walk away after she was dead.
"I would check her pulse to make sure she was dead, I wouldn’t want her to run out and shout ‘help’, ‘help’, ‘help’. I wouldn't want to be caught by the Gardai, I think I would be caught because I do not feel that I could outsmart them,” she added.
Narcissistic personality disorder
Mr Nicholas continuing his closing speech, told the jury: “The threats to the mother, these were regular, there was nothing new in that, the witnesses said they had heard it all before, and it was a case of, ‘that’s just Barbie’”.
Ms Kardashian, who is diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder, had suffered significant trauma from alleged abuse involving her parents, although no details of her alleged mistreatment were disclosed during the trial.
Mr Nicholas said: “She engages in deliberate shock behaviour to be deliberately provocative. She is in a locked space, she’s bored.”
Continuing his final address, he told the jury: “You may not like Ms Kardashian, but this is not the X Factor, and you must look at the evidence dispassionately.”
Mr Nicholas asked the jury to “wipe from your mind”, should it have had come across it, any alleged “unfavorable” online commentary about the accused, which the counsel said was posted by “people with strong hostile views” about Ms Kardashian’s lifestyle choices.
He said Ms Kardashian had been an alleged victim of child “sex abuse” and was now a victim of online “trolling”, which was “a burden on an already burdened person”.
Ms Kardashian’s alleged threats to her mother and Mr Mannix were made March through to September 2020, however Mr Nicholas said it appeared gardai were only made aware of the situation in September 2020.
Mr Nicholas said that up until it was time for Ms Kardashian to leave the unit, there had been “an absence of alarm” among staff about her alleged threats.
After two hours and 29 minutes of deliberation the jury was sent home for the weekend and proceedings were adjourned to Monday morning.
Judge Tom O’Donnell, presiding, told the jury members: “You are at a critical stage now, please do not discuss the matter with anyone outside of yourselves. Stay away from the internet, your duty is to decide the case on the evidence you have heard. Let your minds rest and have a nice weekend whatever you’re going to be doing.”
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can contact Women’s Aid (24-hour freephone helpline at 1800 341 900, email helpline@womensaid.ie) or Men’s Aid Ireland (confidential helpline at 01 554 3811, email hello@mensaid.ie) for support and information.
