When Kim Kardashian appealed last year to her 350 million-plus Instagram followers on behalf of condemned killer Ivan Cantu, she pleaded with them to sign a petition demanding the Collin County, Texas DA withdraw the double murderer’s execution date.
“THE STATE WILL EXECUTE IVAN CANTU IN 2 DAYS,” the starlet wrote above a black-and-white headshot of Cantu.
However, the smiling, clean-cut man in the picture was the wrong Ivan Cantu.
“To all my friends and family, I am not getting executed,” the 60-year-old Morgan Stanley project manager posted on Facebook after being contacted by relatives who spotted the viral post. “Some idiot who runs @kimkardashian used my picture instead of Ivan “Abner” Cantu.”
Cantu, who was convicted of murdering his cousin and her fiancée in 2000, was put to death by lethal injection on February 28, 2024. And Cantu, the Middletown, New York, resident who remains very much alive, is now suing Kardashian for libel, slander, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, negligence, and representing him in a false light.
“Kardashian’s statement that Cantu was on death row in the state of Texas for committing murder was untrue and demonstrably false,” says the complaint, which was filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court and shared with The Independent by the “other” Cantu’s lawyer.
It contends that Kardashian “published and disseminated the false information without privilege or authorization,” and claims her actions were “intentional, negligent, reckless, and/or violated standards of ethics and decency.”
Attorney Greg Sobo, who filed the suit on behalf of Cantu, said on Friday that Kardashian’s post forced his client to contend with an extremely public humiliation amid a deeply vulnerable moment.
“When this happened, Ivan Cantu was in a very private time in his life,” Sobo told The Independent. “He had suffered a serious family loss, and was in a grieving period, and did not want to be interacting with people. And then this comes in and destroys his privacy at a sensitive and critical time for him.”
Sobo said Cantu “is in treatment, he’s been in treatment since it happened, and he’s working through it.”
In 2018, the 44-year-old Kardashian — who became a global superstar with her show Keeping Up With the Kardashians — began pursuing a career in law through a four-year apprenticeship with a San Francisco firm. But while her dreams of a J.D. have been put on hold, Kardashian has since emerged as an outspoken campaigner for criminal justice reform. In 2018, President Donald Trump commuted the life sentence of Alice Johnson, who was convicted of a non-violent drug offense, after meeting with Kardashian about her situation.
In Ivan Cantu’s case, Kardashian’s attempt at advocacy for his namesake did more harm than good, according to his complaint.
It says that Kardashian’s post caused him “serious emotional damage and injury in the form of emotional and mental anguish, psychological harm, embarrassment, anxiety, loss of sleep, nightmares, post-traumatic stress, headaches, need for medical care and emotional counseling.”
Sobo told The Independent that the lawsuit seeks to emphasize “the power of social media and using social media responsibly.”
“We know social media can do so many good things, but if it’s abused, it can really cause injuries,” he said. And that’s really what we want to prove through the case. Am I saying [my client is] never again going to be a functioning person? No. But Kim Kardashian should be held accountable for it. It’s an inexcusable thing that she did, and she really hasn’t taken full accountability for it.”
Cantu’s suit argues that Kardashian’s “actions, and that of her employees or agents … were malicious, oppressive and fraudulent, warranting the imposition of punitive damages.”
Kardashian’s attorney, Michael Rhodes, issued a statement in response to the suit, calling her post “a simple mistake of using the public photo of another man with the same name to promote Kim’s longstanding commitment to the cause of criminal justice reform.”
“The image was taken down almost immediately once the error was discovered,” Rhodes’s statement said. “We’d prefer to solve this without litigation, but of course will defend Kim as needed.”
