The Piper Rockelle legal battle continues: Her mother countersues 10 parents of ex-Piper Squad members for $30 million

A screenshot from Piper Rockelle’s “BEING MEAN To My MOM To See How She REACTS” video. Screenshot – Piper Rockelle/YouTube Tiffany Smith and her daughter, Piper Rockelle, are suing a group of mothers for $30 million. The suit follows a suit by those mothers’ children against Smith and her boyfriend, Hunter Hill.

Smith and Piper are suing under the RICO act, alleging extortion and fabrication of allegations. Tiffany Smith and her daughter, the massively popular teen YouTuber Piper Rockelle, are countersuing the mothers of 11 ex-members of Piper’s “Piper Squad,” seeking $30 million. In an unusual twist, Smith and Piper are suing under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act, which is most often used against mobs or other organized-crime entities.

Smith and her daughter have accused the mothers of conspiring to extort money via fabricating sexual-abuse allegations against Smith. They filed the case in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on July 13. Smith and Piper are suing after 11 former Piper Squad members filed a lawsuit in January with the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles.

In that suit, which is set for trial next year, the plaintiffs have accused Smith and her boyfriend, Hunter Hill, of emotional and sexual abuse and financial exploitation. Smith is accused of making sexually explicit comments to the children, touching multiple girls on their legs, spanking them, and poking “their anuses through their clothing,” among other allegations, the suit says. The lawyer representing Smith and Piper in the Illinois lawsuit, Ronald Bell, told Insider these allegations were fabricated.

 “My client Tiffany was never alone with these children,” he said. “They’re going to pay for this,” Bell said of the parents in the California case. “Where is this going? We’re going to get a jury verdict for $30 million.

“Matthew Sarelson, the lawyer for the 11 children in the California suit, called Smith’s lawsuit “a public-relations stunt designed to deflect. “Scrutiny of Piper’s channel led to YouTube demonetizationYouTube in February demonetized Piper’s channel, which has over 9 million subscribers and nearly 2 billion views. Piper, who also has nearly 10 million TikTok followers and 5 million on Instagram, is known for making vlog-style videos and posting themed pranks featuring her friends.

She’s one of the most successful teen influencers. The California lawsuit against Smith followed years of internet sleuths questioning whether Piper was being exploited for monetary gain and saying she needed to be saved from her mother. The scrutiny included a viral tweet from the singer Pink criticizing her parents.

Some YouTube critics said there was a suggestive nature to Piper’s thumbnail pictures on the channel and expressed concern about the platform’s long history of predators sexualizing children in comment sections. Smith and Hill flatly denied all the allegations in a legal response in May. Smith’s countersuit says the allegations against her are fabricated.

“Eleven underage kids came forward and made very specific allegations of abuse. Their allegations were properly vetted over a period of many months,” Sarelson told Insider in an email. “The suggestion that these kids are collectively lying is non-sense.

“Smith and her daughter are suing for $30 million under the RICO ActThe $30 million Smith and Piper seek is based on the amount of money they say they’ve lost since Piper’s channel was demonetized by YouTube, combined with “injury to reputation” and other fees and damages. The complaint says that before YouTube cut off the channel’s money streams, its content was earning between $300,000 and $500,000 in ad revenue a month, with an additional $50,000 to $125,000 stemming from brand deals. The complaint contains no evidence of the earnings.

 An archived screenshot of Piper’s profile on Social Blade, a data-analytics website, estimated the channel was making between $18,000 and $297,000 a month from ad revenue in August, when it had about 8 million subscribers. Social Blade estimates often have broad ranges, and Smith’s lawyer did not provide evidence of the exact revenue. Smith and her daughter allege in their countersuit that one of the defendants launched a conspiracy last year with the other defendants by using a Google Drive folder and Gmail account to coordinate a campaign of extortion via making false allegations of sexual abuse against Smith.

 The complaint alleges that one of the defendants, Angela Sharbino, told the other defendants to pay $10,000 to a lawyer to “file a false count of sexual battery” against Smith. The suit contains screenshots of what it says is text conversation between Sharbino and an unnamed defendant in which Sharbino appears to urge them to come forward with a story and join their effort against Smith.  The complaint says Sharbino wrote in one text, “She lies constantly why should you care about doing the same?” to the other person, referencing another Piper Squad mother.

Sharbino did not respond to Insider’s request for comment. Sarelson, the lawyer for the former Piper Squad members in the California case, flatly denied the validity of the countersuit. The countersuit also says that as a result of the sexual-assault allegations against Smith, venues in London and Ohio where Piper was supposed to visit on her tour disallowed her from performing to distance themselves from the controversy.

The complaint provides images of email chains from two venue managers. What’s next in the 2 cases?Summons have been issued for the defendants in the Illinois lawsuit, according to documents available online. Bell told Insider he and his clients were in the process of serving the defendants and analyzing their complaint to see how they could improve it.

 “It is telling that the lawsuit was filed in Chicago, considering none of the plaintiffs or the defendants have any connection to Illinois,” Sarelson said. “We look forward to our depositions in the California lawsuit and we believe the federal court will see through these shenanigans. “Along with the sexual-abuse allegations against Smith, the lawsuit in California alleges Smith would “verbally harass” the children during video shoots, which made them cry.

It also accuses Smith and Hill of not paying the children for acting in hundreds of Piper’s videos and says they used “a variety of dirty tactics” to sabotage the other children’s YouTube channels after they disassociated from the Piper Squad. Smith and Hill did not return Insider’s requests for comment. Read the original article on Insider.