Hawk Tuah Girl Haliey Welch Needs to Talk to a Lawyer

The viral star, a.k.a. Hawk Tuah Girl, has found herself in hot water after the group behind her meme coin, HAWK, was sued

Haliey Welch, also known as Hawk Tuah Girl, is facing legal troubles after being named in a lawsuit over the unregistered meme coin HAWK. Despite not being directly sued, Welch's involvement in promoting the coin is putting her under scrutiny. A group of investors who lost money in HAWK are now suing overHere founder Clinton So, his company Tuah the Moon Foundation, and influencer Alex Larson Schultz, seeking damages exceeding $151,000. The lawsuit alleges that Welch's participation misled investors into believing HAWK was a registered security, which played a role in their decision to invest in the cryptocurrency.

Welch has responded to the situation with a statement shared to X, expressing her concern for the investors who have been impacted and stating that she is cooperating fully with the legal team representing them. Her goal is to assist in uncovering the truth, holding the responsible parties accountable, and resolving the matter, Welch said in the statement.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that So and Schultz, along with Schultz's company AXL Unlimited LLC, promoted HAWK tokens as early as August 2022. The complaint alleges that the defendants misled investors about the nature of the tokens, which were initially priced at $0.00027 and soared to a peak market capitalization of $490 million within hours. However, the Token's value crashed by 90 percent later that day, rendering them essentially worthless, the complaint alleges.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs are arguing that Welch's involvement in promoting HAWK, which included posting about the coin on social media and appearing in promotional videos, put their clients under the impression that the cryptocurrency was registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). “Many of the investors were first-time cryptocurrency participants drawn to the project through Welch’s involvement,” the complaint reads. “The rapid decline in the Token’s value caused substantial damages to investors who relied on Welch’s participation and the project’s stated roadmap.”

Welch herself is not named as a defendant in the suit, but her presence in the complaint is undeniable. The investors who lost money in HAWK are represented by attorneys Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP and the Law Offices of Howard G. Smith.

A spokesperson for overHere, the web3 company that launched and promoted HAWK, told Bloomberg that the company had done nothing wrong. “We have been extremely transparent about the limited scope and extent of our involvement in the Hawk Tuah token project,” the spokesperson said. “We are confident that we have done nothing wrong.”