All Episodes

August 6, 2025 17 mins

Episode 29 - The Penis Restraining Order - This episode includes discussion of sexual assault and explicit anatomical references. It contains mature content that may not be appropriate for all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. 

Karen Koehler walks us through one of the most outrageous, unforgettable, and legally strategic motions she has ever filed: a request to restrain rapper Nelly’s penis. Yes, you read that right.

This episode is a wild ride, from the Kent courthouse to the press frenzy that followed, as Karen breaks down why she believed the request was legitimate, how the defense team reacted, and what it was like to stand before a judge and argue a motion no one saw coming. Mo Hamoudi and Mike Todd react in real time, going from disbelief to total admiration.

But behind the laughs is a serious point. How do you make sure the justice system addresses the harm of sexual violence when standard procedures feel inadequate? Karen flips the script by putting the alleged assailant’s body on notice and forces the defense to talk about it.

In the Press:

🎧 Stay Connected with The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast

Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State.

Watch full episodes on YouTube
Follow us on Instagram, TikTok & Facebook
📬 Questions or topic ideas? Email us at thevelvethammerpodcast@stritmatter.com

🔥 New episodes every Wednesday
Subscribe for bold takes, heartfelt moments, and the unfiltered reality of what it means to live and lead as a trial lawyer at Stritmatter Law.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mo Hamoudi (00:02):
Happy Monday.

Karen Koehler (00:04):
You're growing a beard I am growing a beard.
All right.

Mike Todd (00:07):
Is that just from this weekend?

Karen Koehler (00:11):
You went into the woods, you did jujitsu.

Mike Todd (00:14):
The testosterone just pushed the hair out
automatically.

Mo Hamoudi (00:18):
Yes, I did.
I went into the woods.
I went into the wild, I didjujitsu, I shot firearms.
I jumped into a cold river.
I went into a wood fire sauna Iate by the fire and hung out
with a bunch of dudes.

Karen Koehler (00:36):
He is basically reverted.

Mo Hamoudi (00:39):
I have.

Karen Koehler (00:40):
Several million generations.

Mo Hamoudi (00:46):
I am Mo caveman.
It was fantastic.
All right, that's awesome.

Karen Koehler (00:50):
Today, let's talk about one of my nearest and
dearest, happiest subjects,which is bringing novel
proceedings before the court,and I have the best story to
start off with.

Mo Hamoudi (01:04):
Let's hear it.

Karen Koehler (01:04):
All right before the court and I have the best
story to start off with.
Let's hear it.
All right, so I had a lawsuiton behalf of a young woman who
alleged alleged um that she wassexually assaulted uh by uh,
nelly who's nelly?
what?
Oh, you'll just have to hearthis story.

(01:25):
So and I actually had a secondalleged victim that I
represented, so there's two.
But this started off with thefirst one and I brought a motion
early on in the case.
So and I also drafted thislawsuit.

(01:45):
So I drafted the lawsuit, whichput all the facts of the
alleged assault in there.
It explained who Nelly was.

Mo Hamoudi (01:56):
Okay.

Karen Koehler (01:58):
Nelly was a rapper.

Mo Hamoudi (02:01):
Oh, Nelly Still is.

Karen Koehler (02:02):
Still is a rapper from years gone by, from
like the 90s from the 90s, Iwould say so he's doing some
kind of like old school show andum, so anyway, um, filed, you
know, filed this lawsuit and ithad many things in it.

(02:24):
You know, you, when you file alawsuit, it's it's.
You say the facts, you say theliability, and then there's
causes of action, like what doyou want the court to do about
it?
And in civil cases normally,yeah what is it?
we've been talking about itmoney yeah money but, sometimes
you can ask for other thingslike what what Like?

(02:44):
I asked for a restraining order.

Mo Hamoudi (02:49):
Oh, you did.

Karen Koehler (02:50):
Yes.

Mo Hamoudi (02:51):
In the lawsuit.

Karen Koehler (02:51):
In the lawsuit.

Mo Hamoudi (02:53):
Restrain Nellie from my client.

Karen Koehler (02:55):
Well, no, not exactly.
Okay, what did?
You say it was a bigger becauseI also believe in like the
purpose of a lawsuit should be abigger purpose to serve the
public good.

Mike Todd (03:04):
All right.

Karen Koehler (03:14):
So the restraining order was against
his penis.
I wanted it to stay.
Wait a minute.
I wanted it to stay away fromfans after the concert.
I wanted it to Wait a minute.

Mo Hamoudi (03:27):
I wanted it to stay away from fans after the concert
.
I wanted it to Wait a minuteStop.

Karen Koehler (03:31):
What Wait?
A minute, stop I knew I couldwake him up.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Yes, I did.

Mo Hamoudi (03:36):
Wait, you restrained his penis.

Karen Koehler (03:38):
Yes, so they wanted that out and we wait.
What do you mean?

Mo Hamoudi (03:49):
they wanted it, they wanted, no, they wanted.

Karen Koehler (03:54):
They wanted what is happening he comes back from
the woods.
All masculine.
And here I come with arestraining order about the
penis you just.
So I can't remember if theymoved to dismiss that out of the
lawsuit which they could haveor if we moved to enforce it, it

(04:16):
doesn't matter, but I believethey moved to dismiss it and
other things out of the lawsuit.

Mo Hamoudi (04:20):
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Koehler (04:21):
And Andrew was working on a case with me at the
time.
Now we know whose idea therestraining order was yes for
sure.

Mike Todd (04:28):
It was not Andrew's idea.
It's not Andrew.

Mo Hamoudi (04:31):
I have not asked him , but I am 100% confident it was
not Andrew.

Karen Koehler (04:37):
So we go.
It was in Kent Regional JusticeCenter, which is in Kent.
King County is so big thatthere's a Seattle King County
and then there's a Kent KingCounty Court.
They're separate because theKing County is one of the
biggest counties in the country.
So we went to Kent RegionalJustice Center and his attorney

(05:00):
was a real big mouth, pr focusedguy.

Mike Todd (05:04):
I can remember that and was he from out of state?

Karen Koehler (05:10):
Oh yeah, they were all out of state yeah, and
he was threatening me this andthe whole time.
He was always threatening meand he's like, oh, I know
everything and I am, so I'mfamous lawyer and and I looked
up all the crap on this lawyerI'm like, oh God, um, so
blowhard let me just say that ablowhard lawyer, uh, from uh,

(05:34):
wherever he was from.
So he shows up along withNellie's agent from California.
Nellie's not there and it'sbasically we all know what's
coming right.
It's the penis injunctionhearing.
So we get up there and Andrewyou know Andrew is my second

(05:57):
chair and you know he should bearguing these motions.
He's good at arguing motions.
He does not want to argue themotion.

Mo Hamoudi (06:03):
Wait, I'm not arguing a penis motion.

Karen Koehler (06:04):
He told me he wasn't going to argue it.
He's good at arguing motions.
He does not want to argue themotion.
Wait, I'm not arguing a penismotion.
He told me he wasn't going toargue it.
He's like I'm not going toargue it, what?
And I'm like okay, I'll argueit.
This is great.
So we get up there.
They're sitting on the.
So the court is in the middleup high.
It's a female judge.
They are sitting on the.
If you were looking at thejudge, they're on the right side

(06:26):
in the front tables.
I think there's three of them,but I only remember who the two
were the attorney and the agent.
Maybe there was some other guy.
And then there was me andAndrew and I argued.
I argued it yeah, and this iswhat the judge has called Now.

(06:46):
The judge was not mad at me.
The judge actually was tryingnot to smile.
I knew it.
I could tell she was trying notto smile, especially when she
said that it was a veryinteresting motion.

Mo Hamoudi (06:58):
It wasn't interesting.

Karen Koehler (07:01):
But and I just can remember her little cheekies
and kind of just she says I'mconcerned about how would we
enforce this?
Wait a minute.

Mo Hamoudi (07:15):
I bet you she said that.
She said that knowing it'sgoing to create a laugh.

Karen Koehler (07:20):
Yes, it was so funny.
I mean, she's like, you know,I'm very creative or interesting
, whatever she said.
But you know, how would we goabout enforcing this?
And yeah, which, of course, isthe issue, Like, if you have a
restraining order, you have tobe able to enforce it.

Mo Hamoudi (07:37):
Yeah.

Karen Koehler (07:37):
So we basically would have to follow him around.
Anyway, they were not amused,oh my gosh.
They were hoofing and holleringand yeah.
So he was very unpleasant thewhole time, very unpleasant the
whole time.
So I can't talk about anythingelse about the case.

(08:00):
I could talk about some things,but Did the motion get granted?

Mike Todd (08:07):
No, she denied it, cause I couldn't figure out how
there was no way to puthandcuffs on his penis.

Mo Hamoudi (08:15):
Oh, you mean their motion was granted to strike?
The penis provision, yeah, andthen so, like what I want to
hear, I want to hear what didyou articulate as a time, place,
place, manner, restriction onthe penis.
What did you say?

Karen Koehler (08:31):
I'm sure I came up with something, because I
always have something to say.

Mo Hamoudi (08:34):
Okay, but I can't remember.
Is there a transcript somewhere?
I'm sure there is somewhere.
I've got to see this transcript.

Karen Koehler (08:39):
But I don't know what we did with it.
It happened five years ago, now, six years ago, I can't
remember ago, now, six years ago, I can't remember uh, but
anyway, that was an example of amotion that that uh was brought
for the, for the, for the pointof the matter, for the point of
the matter.

Mo Hamoudi (08:55):
Well, so I want to do a follow-up.
When you drafted the complaint,did you?
You put into the complaintrestrain his penis as a form of
relief, and then they moved amotion to strike the provision
to restrain his penis, yes, andthen all right.
So I want to walk through this.
So when you're drafting acomplaint and I've seen your

(09:18):
complaints, they're verydetailed storytelling At what
point do you decide like a penisneeds to be a party to this
action?

Karen Koehler (09:28):
Like, did you?

Mo Hamoudi (09:28):
make that decision before.
Like before or as you'rewriting, you're like oh penis.

Karen Koehler (09:33):
As I was doing it, I was like you know, like
this is an issue, Plus, I alwaysdo due diligence right, so I
talk to people.

Mo Hamoudi (09:47):
What do you mean?
Talk to people?

Karen Koehler (09:49):
I make sure that you know what happened, I
believe.

Mo Hamoudi (09:52):
I see you make sure.

Karen Koehler (09:54):
Yes, you have to .
Cr 11 requires you to do a goodfaith, you know.

Mo Hamoudi (10:00):
Basis to make the allegations Research.

Karen Koehler (10:01):
Yeah, I looked at everything I looked at and
felt that I completely believedmy client.

Mo Hamoudi (10:10):
Yeah.

Karen Koehler (10:10):
I mean completely believed the client,
Completely believe the client,and if this was true, then in my
opinion, as a female, this waskind of like the next essential
step.
Like I said, public safety.

Mo Hamoudi (10:29):
Public safety and did you talk to Andrew and like
come to a conclusion, like we'regoing to do this?

Karen Koehler (10:38):
We're going after the penis.
He knew I was going to do it.
There's no stopping me when I'mgoing to do something.

Mo Hamoudi (10:43):
Did Andrew try to persuade you to hey, let's take
the penis out?

Karen Koehler (10:47):
He just didn't want to argue it.

Mo Hamoudi (10:48):
So he said let's leave it in, but I don't want to
touch it.

Karen Koehler (10:51):
So to speak, so to speak.

Mo Hamoudi (10:57):
This is the best monday ever this is the best
monday ever.
Okay, wait, there's more,because I am just having fun,
all right.
So did you meet and confirmabout the motion before you went
to court?

Karen Koehler (11:14):
no, you don't have to, but we had been you,
he'd been playing his wholestory, the attorney, to the
press.
And you know, like I said, theyhave this PR thing, they had
his agent.
You know they wanted you knowthis to go away.

Mo Hamoudi (11:28):
Yeah.

Karen Koehler (11:28):
You know yeah.

Mo Hamoudi (11:30):
Did he call you and be like what are you doing?
What is this?

Karen Koehler (11:33):
I'm so big and I'm so bad and I'm going to
crush you.
It was just one of those kindof guys.
So was he acting like a penisOf course yes, and you know what
happens when that happens to me, mike, I can't help myself.

Mike Todd (11:50):
I know it's too easy.

Karen Koehler (11:53):
I am not intimidated by a penis.

Mike Todd (11:55):
No.

Karen Koehler (11:56):
Let's just put this down.

Mo Hamoudi (11:58):
Don't worry, we know that.
No, you don't need to tell usthat, and you know it started at
a very young age.
Like when I was born.

Karen Koehler (12:06):
No, because no, you got to listen because my dad
was a professor at theUniversity of Washington.

Mo Hamoudi (12:12):
Okay.

Karen Koehler (12:13):
And his specialty was sperm.
Wait what?
Yes, I saw sperm in electronmicroscopes before I started
kindergarten.
I've known all about the penismy whole life, Like there's no
mystery involved.

Mo Hamoudi (12:26):
Okay, that's great, because you got educated about
it.

Karen Koehler (12:29):
Right, I know what those things are.

Mike Todd (12:42):
And they're not as powerful as you think.

Mo Hamoudi (12:43):
Not in this, for sure, not in this case, for sure
.
Okay, um, um did the pressreport on this penis motion.
Yeah, I gotta go look this upbecause that's, that's just yeah
it was in the news at the time,for sure.
I mean, it takes some cojonesto do that, by the way, to like
move to restrain a penis.

Karen Koehler (13:03):
What's a?

Mo Hamoudi (13:03):
cojones, that's balls yes that's balls.
That's why I set that up, tosee if Mike would bite any fish.

Mike Todd (13:11):
I just wasn't going to go there too fast.
Oh God, I'm crying.

Mo Hamoudi (13:21):
This is so funny.

Karen Koehler (13:27):
I mean no, it was just it was.
Was it what it was?
It was?

Mike Todd (13:37):
Okay, we should move on to the next interesting
motion.

Karen Koehler (13:41):
I think honestly that that was just.
There's nothing, there's nocopying that one.
There's not much, no, and youcan finish your thought and
we're going to move on andfinish this.
This will be a very shortpodcast.

Mo Hamoudi (13:51):
This will be very short, because it deserves its
own platform.
It does, I agree.
I will say this the moral ofthe story there is that Don't
mess with me and my clients, butit's not just don't mess with
you.
I think that if someone iswatching and wants to learn how
to apply what we just spokeabout into their own practice

(14:12):
which is, I think, reallyimportant is that don't feel
bound by what you believe to bedecorum, because what you did
was fairly bold and the judgedid not like call you out to say
, miss color, that'sinappropriate.
She understood the context ofwhat you were trying to
accomplish.
It met the objectives of whatyou were trying to do for the
client.
That that was the source of herdistress.

(14:35):
And what you did is you tookwhat usually when you're talking
about sexual assault, you'retalking about somebody being
humiliated and shame and youflip the script because when you
wrote something like that intothe complaint, it put his own
body on notice.
You think you can takeadvantage of somebody else's

(14:55):
body?
Well, your body is now out inthe open.
Thank, Thank you, so I thinkthat tactically I think that's
great.
But that's the lesson.
But it was, what a great laugh.

Mike Todd (15:05):
Don't you think also that you, in a way, were able to
manipulate the press in thesame way that they were trying
to on their own?

Karen Koehler (15:12):
Me Moi.

Mo Hamoudi (15:17):
It's called season.
No, I know.

Mike Todd (15:18):
Karen does this one often.
You have to go Moi.
It's called season.

Karen Koehler (15:22):
No, I know, karen does this one often and I
think that you have to go.
You have, if a lawyer is goingto, you know, try a case in the
public forum which they werelike I said, who?

Mike Todd (15:34):
They had a team, a PR team, working on it.

Karen Koehler (15:36):
He didn't show up to the hearing, His agent did
, His lawyer did and some otherperson and they are sitting
there trying this case beforeit's anything against this.
You know she was a collegestudent person.
Then bring it on.
You cannot ignore that as alawyer.

(15:59):
You cannot ignore that as alawyer, If you're in that kind
of a case, you have to protectyour client on all forms, on all
levels.
You have to.
If a lawyer says, well, I'mnever going to touch the media,
then I think you're doing a hugedisservice because your client
in the public eye has just losttheir, their case.

Mike Todd (16:21):
Well, and you just made them talk about their
client's penis, so I think thatwas a messy.
Well, yes, that was.

Karen Koehler (16:28):
that was one of the goals was to hear him have
to say that in court.
Andrew, andrew, by the way, ifyou could have seen Andrew, he
could not put his head under thetable but he sat there with his
eyes, just he could not put hishead under the table.
But he just sat there with hiseyes just looking at me, just
watching the whole thing, justwatching it go.
He was immovable, he did notmove.
I didn't even know if he wasbreathing.

(16:49):
Through the whole thing that'sgreat, that's awesome.
All right.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.