Chris Brown was ordered to pay a sum of almost $13 million to his former housekeeper Maria Avila over injuries she suffered in a December 2020 attack by his dog Hades at his Tarzana, California residence, a jury decided on Tuesday. Jurors in Van Nuys, California ruled that the Grammy-winner, 37, and his company Pyramid LLC, should pay Avila $12.9 million for damages related to the attack, Michael C. Murphy Jr., a lawyer representing Avila's sister Patricia, told Billboard on Thursday. Brown and his company were also ordered to pay Avila's sister Patricia, who had also been working on the premises that day, a total of $885,000, citing emotional distress, Murphy said. Avila's spouse Oscar Olivo had been awarded a total of $50,000 on grounds of loss of consortium, the lawyer added. 'After more than five years of litigating against Chris Brown, we are thrilled that we were able to get justice for our client, Patricia,' Avila's attorney Murphy told Billboard Tuesday. 'We are so happy for her and her family after everything they went through on that horrible day.' The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Brown and Avila's attorney for further comment on the story.

Avila named the Forever singer in a 2021 lawsuit asking for $90 million, with a trial commencing this month. In testimony, Avila said June 24 that she 'will never be the same again' in the wake of the incident, Rolling Stone reported. Avila's daughter Yoseline Espinoza said that her aunt Patricia Avila had called her in a panic in the immediate moments following the traumatic incident. Espinoza said, 'She was just freaking out, telling me, "Your mom can't breathe. She keeps passing out on me. The ambulance is still not here. Chris Brown fled the scene."

I did not think she was going to make it.' Brown testified that his housekeeper's face showed significant injuries and 'a lot of blood' in the wake of the attack. 'It was cut, like, severed,' Brown said. 'I know it's graphic, but you could see the skin was kind of raised. You could see the cut and the blood coming out.' Brown said he departed his home prior to the arrival of first responders at the advice of his manager, citing his celebrity status.

When asked why that factored in his decision, Brown said it was 'because of how [his] image is and always used.' He added, 'I didn't want a misleading story, or like a circus, from my status. It's pretty sticky when it comes to that. So me staying out of the way was advised.' Brown said that he drove around for a few hours and made a gas station stop prior to returning to his home, according to the outlet. While Brown had accepted partial liability in connection with the incident, he said that Avila's injuries were overstated.

Brown said Avila and her sister had ignored his warnings that the dogs on the premises were aggressive, and that they should only approach them with security personnel. The Tappahannock, Virginia-born musical artist said in testimony that Hades was specifically acquired to secure the premises, under the supervision of guards, due to 'a lot of stalker-type situations' he's had to deal with. Avila previously said in legal docs that she 'screamed in terror and called out for help' when Brown's dog mauled her December 12, 2020, damaging flesh and bone and leaving her with multiple permanent injuries. 'Hearing the actual growl is what actually shocked me, to make me go downstairs,' Brown told the court, adding that when he approached his injured housekeeper, he tried to establish she was alive.

'I didn't touch her,' Brown said. 'I bent down, and I looked. I was making sure she was breathing, and then from there, I ran and put the dogs away and yelled and told the security guard to come over.' Brown said that he 'could see her chest moving,' and after being informed medical help was en route, he left the scene. 'It attacked me on my face, my hand, and it pierced its teeth on my foot,' Avila told the court in a deposition more than two years ago. 'I didn't see it, I simply felt it - it was something really big.' Brown 'fled the scene' in the wake of the attack, as Avila testified she 'heard the car that left,' calling false his claims she had been instructed not to go outside at that time. The singer told the court in a pretrial deposition that he was alerted to the attack when he heard his attack dog growling from upstairs.

The singer told the court that he did not decide how the situation with Hades - a Central Asian Ovcharka - was handled in the aftermath of the attack. The dog had been taken to Humboldt County by a security guard and let go before officials found the canine and put him to sleep. Multiple potential jurors in the case had been dismissed after admitting they did not have a favorable view of Brown. They cited his infamous assault on then-girlfriend Rihanna after a pre-Grammys party on February 8, 2009, for which he was convicted on felony assault charges later that year.