The mother of prominent teenage social media personality Piper Rockelle has filed a lawsuit against 10 women she said attempted to extort millions of dollars by falsely accusing her of sexually abusing and molesting their children.
Tiffany Rockelle Smith filed a complaint July 13 in federal court in Chicago, listing as plaintiffs her minor daughter, Piper Rockelle Smith, and Piper Rockelle Inc. She levied racketeering accusations against Angela Sharbino, Yvonne Dougher, Maria Mekus, Carla Haas, Jennifer Bryant, Heather Trimmer, Stephenie Areeco, Tania Harrison, Amber Cain and Ashley Anne-Rock Smith.
According to the complaint, the “false allegations of sexual abuse against Tiffany” constitute a conspiracy “designed with the sole intent to have the effect of getting Piper, a 14-year-old child, demonetized from YouTube and other providers so she could not receive advertising revenue from her postings.”
Smith said Piper netted between $300,000 and $500,000 per month from advertisers and another $50,000 to $125,000 in brand deals. Smith is seeking more than $30 million in compensatory, punitive and trebled damages. According to the complaint, Piper’s accounts have 5.2 million Instagram followers and more than 9 million each on TikTok and YouTube. The family lives in Los Angeles, where Tiffany Smith was the CEO and director of the holdings company in Piper’s name.
The children of the 10 defendants, according to Smith, “were once associated with Piper and jointly created content for their mutual social media accounts together.” But jealousy allegedly led the women to launch their own enterprises seeking to monetize their children’s content and “create, plan and execute the conspiracy” to destroy Piper’s success, the complaint continued.
As a result of allegations against Tiffany, venues in Chicago, Cincinnati and London canceled Piper’s concert bookings and YouTube cut off her revenue stream.
According to Smith, Piper began competing in beauty pageants at age 5 and was only 9 when she quickly rose to prominence on TikTok predecessor Musical.ly. She now is “one of the most influential young people on social media.”
The complaint details the social media following of the defendants’ children. She accused Sharbino of starting the conspiracy in 2021 with a text message stating the intent to “take (Piper) down and get her canceled.” Smith alleged Sharbino then created a Google Drive link and Gmail address to conduct conversations about the plan, which is central to the allegations of using the internet to carry out the scheme.
Smith said Sharbino allegedly asked each of the other defendants to pay her $10,000 “to bring a baseless complaint against” her and introduced several text messages as evidence, including some from defendants expressing reluctance to cooperate. The defendants allegedly each paid for an attorney to draft a sexual battery complaint against Tiffany, according to Smith’s allegations, “even though defendants were informed by the text messages that sexual abuse did not exist and was a serious allegation.”
In one text exchange attached to the complaint, in response to an unidentified person writing “I don’t have those same stories,” Sharbino allegedly wrote: “Please trust me. Those stories will cause the most embarrassment and make them cancel her and them can’t make money anymore.” She later allegdly wrote: “Please trust us. We will be on top. Nobody can stop us. Been working on this for many months. We’d love to have you on the team. Just hear me out.”
Smith also attached an affidavit from Caroline Fratacci, who said she regularly visited the Smith house in Hollywood so her daughter could participate in Piper’s videos and she “never personally witnessed Tiffany Smith making inappropriate sexual remarks, or engaging in any sexual or otherwise abusive acts toward my children.”
She also submitted a declaration from photographer Ashley Roberts, who said Fratacci told her she was helping at least seven of the defendants “make up claims against Tiffany,” which resulted in a January 2022 complaint from 11 of the defendants’ children filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Smith included excerpts from that lawsuit in her complaint.
“I clicked on the Google drive link and was shocked when I viewed an exchange wherein someone was being asked to collaborate with them against Tiffany and to lie about sexual molestation allegations against her,” Roberts said. “It was at this point I realized that I had to disclose what had been shown to me because these were very serious allegations.”
Roberts provided screenshots of several of her alleged exchanges with Fratacci, whom she accused of allegedly trying to intimidate her into deleting records of their conversations.
In addition to damages, Smith seeks a jury trial and compensation for legal fees.
Attorney Ronald L. Bell, of Libertyville, is representing the Rockelle Smith family.