10 Times Rich Karens Faced Justice
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VOICE OVER: Ryan Wild
WRITTEN BY: Jordy McKen
These rich Karens paid the price for their bad behavior. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at infamous moments when wealthy people showcased their horrendous, entitled, and rude behavior, only to receive some much-deserved consequences. Our countdown of the times rich Karens faced justice includes Millionaire Thief, Kentucky Karen, Modern-Day Slave Owners, and more!
Times Rich Karens Faced Justice
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at infamous moments when wealthy people showcased their horrendous, entitled, and rude behavior, only to receive some much-deserved consequences.
Malibu Baddie
In 2020, Natosha Lawson, a security guard for Pavilions supermarket in West Hollywood, California, went to break up an argument between apparent wealthy Malibu resident Kashmire Duran and her father in the parking lot. Instead of Lawson sorting it out with no issue, Duran turned her wrath towards the guard. She spat racial slurs, bit Lawson’s hand, and threw a glass bottle at her! Duran was eventually dragged away by her dad and put into a car, probably hoping for a hasty exit. However, as witnesses had blocked them from leaving, she decided to utter more racial slurs. Duran was arrested for her terrible antics and was charged with two felonies of assault.Socialite Slurs
As this incident proves, money can’t buy class. In 2018, Jacqueline Kent Cooke, the daughter of the late sports team owner Jack Kent Cooke, was in line waiting to get her coat from a restaurant in New York City. In front of the millionaire socialite was lawyer Matthew Haberkorn and his family. Impatient and high on her own importance, Cooke voiced antisemitic slurs at the family. When Haberkorn confronted her outside, Cooke whacked him on the head with her $400 mirrored glass purse, causing him injuries, then claimed she acted in self-defense. Unsurprisingly, Cooke was arrested for assault. She took a plea deal for disorderly conduct and was sentenced to three days of community service.Millionaire Thief
You don’t get much more entitled than defrauding a retiree of their life savings. In 2017, an unidentified man met Florida’s Peaches Stergo on a dating website. For the next four years, she told him about her supposed money issues with a fictional injury settlement and the bank, causing the concentration camp survivor to write 62 checks to her, amounting to $2.8 million! Stergo used the cash to buy a new home, cars, and a lot of luxuries. With his life savings and having to give up his apartment, the victim confessed to his son what had happened in 2021. Soon after, Stergo was arrested. In 2023, she was sentenced to four years and three months, had to forfeit her home and the goods she purchased and pay back what she stole.Road Rage Racism
Melissa Gutknecht did the stereotype of Audi drivers no favors in 2018. After getting treatment at a hospital in Vallejo, California, Marshaunte Farris was being driven home by her boyfriend, Shamiek Sheppard, on I-80. Instead of a calming journey, they spotted Gutknecht driving recklessly. After trying to avoid her car by switching lanes, she cut them off. When their car got side to side with Gutknecht's, the Karen rolled down her window and screamed abuse at the couple, including some racial slurs, which were filmed by Farris. After the clip was put on social media and Gutknecht was identified, she reportedly lost her high-paying job at an investment banking firm.Broker Brawl
After a night on the town, broker Dina Huang Chih-Yung got a taxi back to her hotel in Singapore in 2016. Instead of paying the driver, the drunken Huang attempted to leave, prompting the employee to hold onto her handbag. After some back and forth involving Huang berating and hitting the driver, he got help from a security guard. However, Huang continued to verbally and physically assault the pair during her rampage, including biting the guard and bragging that she had money. When things cooled down, the police found Huang sleeping outside the hotel’s restaurant. In 2018, she was sentenced to three weeks in jail for her escapades and fined around $752.Modern-Day Slave Owners
It doesn’t get more entitled from a Karen than trying to own a person. And that’s exactly what millionaire couple Mahender Sabhnani and Varsha Sabhnani attempted at their home in Long Island, New York. The perfume makers had subjected two Indonesian housekeepers to horrible conditions. Their crimes came to light in 2007 when one of the women escaped and got help at a nearby doughnut shop. After the couple’s arrest, Varsha’s mother reportedly attempted to bribe one of the victim’s family to drop the charges. In 2008, Varsha, who was deemed primarily responsible, was sentenced to 11 years in jail. Mahender was sent down for a little over three years and fined $12,500.Wealthy Threat
On a night in 2015, road worker Bernard Armstrong was standing by his truck on the shoulder of the North Central Expressway in Texas. As Nicole Hutchison drove home after apparently drinking at a restaurant, she struck the truck with her Mercedes and then fatally hit Armstrong and crashed into a freeway wall. When the police arrived to arrest her, Hutchison told them she was wealthy and that they would regret this. She eventually took a plea deal and was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2018. After serving a little more than a year, Hutchison was released on parole in 2019. Subsequently, she founded the Rusty Diamond Network, a foundation to aid incarcerated women.Kentucky Karen
In 2022, student Kylah Spring was working as a desk clerk at a dormitory for the University of Kentucky when a very intoxicated Sophia Rosing entered the building. As Spring asked to see her ID, Rosing launched into a verbal and physical attack on her, using racial slurs repeatedly. The police soon arrived. However, Rosing claimed her wealth gave her special status, and kicked and bit them before the cuffs were slapped on. This isn’t the first time Rosing has been filmed being drunkenly combative, bragging about how rich she was and mocking others for not being as wealthy. The University released a statement that Rosing had been permanently banned from their campus. In 2023, Rosing was criminally indicted on several counts, including assault.Not-So-Fabulous Karen
Sisters Leisa and Mary Garris were waiting for AAA in the parking lot of Leisa’s apartment in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2018. Then, an intoxicated Susan Westwood decided to get involved. After questioning why they were there, she told them she was white, hot, and fabulous, and bragged about her $125,000 job. Westwood also threw in multiple insults with racial overtones and shoved her phone in their face. When she left, Westwood falsely called the cops to tell them the sisters were breaking into cars. Yikes. In 2019, she was sentenced for misuse of 911 and assault, receiving a year of probation and court costs. On top of that, Westwood was fired from her lavish job and was evicted from her apartment complex.Realtor Rage
It’s weird how Karens like to worm their racist way into situations in parking lots. In 2022, four Indian-American women were leaving a restaurant in Plano, Texas, when realtor Esmeralda Upton popped up. Without warning, she ranted about how much she hated Indians, uttering slurs along the way. Upton even got physical with one of the women who was recording and threatened the group with fatal violence. When the cops arrived, for some reason, Upton mentioned she lived in a $1.5 million house, as though that would get her off scot-free. It didn’t, as she was arrested the next day and charged for her threats. To make it worse for Upton, she also faces not one but two lawsuits by the victims. Delightful.Which wealthy celebrity gives off Karen vibes? Let us know below!
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