Haliey Welch, the "Hawk Tuah" girl, has been named in a new filing for the existing federal class action lawsuit against the creators of the calamitous meme coin launch that she promoted last year.
The filing alleges that Welch was paid potentially up to $325,000 to be a “critical component” of a token launch that promised features that it could not deliver from a technical standpoint. The new filing says this was no accident, and alleges that the coin was designed to crash within minutes of launch, letting insiders cash in on the initial frenzy and then cash out.
The social media star and podcast host had previously been left out of the lawsuit filed just weeks after the Solana-based token launched. Welch said in a now-deleted statement on X that she was “fully cooperating” with the law firm that’s suing her business partners to “uncover the truth.”
Burwick Law, the firm behind the class action lawsuit, previously told Decrypt that it intentionally left Welch out of the case as it felt it was the most effective way to make its clients whole.
However, in the latest twist in the tale, Burwick Law has asked the court to allow the firm to amend the class action complaint to include Welch, her manager Johnnie Forster, and company 16 Minutes LLC as defendants. It also added new fraud allegations and is seeking an order to grant alternative ways to serve existing defendants, Clinton So and OverHere Limited, per Court Listener.
Welch’s company, 16 Minutes LLC, signed a “Meme Token Creation and Monetization Agreement” with Memetic Labs nearly five months before the token launch, the filing says. The contract said that Welch would promote the token across all social media channels in exchange for $125,000 upfront, with an additional $200,000 upon meeting promotional milestones. Memetic Labs was granted a 50% lifetime profit share tied to trading activity, the suit claims.
“These payments transformed Welch from a passive celebrity into a critical component of a coordinated marketing funnel designed to draw in retail purchasers who trusted her,” the new filing says.
Welch quickly rose to fame in 2024 following an unscripted interview in which she revealed her “hawk tuah” sexual technique. She used this viral moment to then launch a popular podcast and grow her online following into the millions.
The Hawk Tuah token was promoted by Welch as a “transformational cultural token,” the new filing says, which would be integrated with Welch’s podcast to offer subscription-style benefits. However, the token had none of the technical components to actually build this, the suit says.
HAWK soared to a market capitalization of $490 million within less than 15 minutes after launch, before immediately collapsing 93% in value. The suit claims that this didn’t happen due to mismanagement, but rather it was always designed to perform that way. It says that insiders bought up large portions of the supply before selling $1.27 million in tokens just minutes after launch.
“The pseudonymous wallets orchestrating the scam were not random actors. Blockchain forensics reveal that the same wallet clusters funded, executed, or laundered proceeds from multiple other rug pulls—including LIBRA, M3M3, AIAI, and the infamous TRUMP snipe,” the lawsuit states. “The timing patterns, funding flows, and extraction methods across these schemes are nearly identical.”
LIBRA was a token promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei, and it collapsed hours after launching. It has since found itself at the center of a multiple lawsuits and legal probes, including one led by Burwick Law, which ties its team to First Lady Melania Trump’s meme coin as well as the M3M3 token launch. And President Trump promoted an officially licensed Solana meme coin in January that had its value tank a couple days after launch.
Burwick Law alleges these were all “rug pulls," and followed similar on-chain patterns to what was seen with HAWK.
As a result, Welch has been named in the latest amendment to the class action lawsuit due to her role in promoting the token based on “misrepresentations” about the token’s potential utilities. The influencer’s manager, Forster, has also been named, as the filing claims he was responsible for Welch’s branding, including the embrace of the HAWK token, and also promoted the meme coin himself. Finally, 16 Minutes LLC was added as a defendant, as it is the “operating entity” for Welch’s career that signed the monetization agreement, the filing states.
It is important to note that these are just allegations at this stage, as the court has not made its findings in this case.
Burwick Law did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment on why it has now added Welch to the case after previously leaving her out. Welch also did not respond.
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