Legal and Management
Mally Mall Sentenced to Prison in Las Vegas Prostitution Case
“Rashid exploited hundreds of victims” through manipulation, rules and threats, the top federal prosecutor in Nevada said, “encouraged victims to get tattoos of him to demonstrate their loyalty, and led many of them to believe he would advance their careers in show business.” Rashid’s attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, said he “accepted full responsibility for his conduct that occurred almost a decade ago.” “He will serve his sentence and looks forward to returning to the music industry,” the attorneys said in a statement. A San Francisco Bay Area native, Rashid worked with artists including Tyga, Justin Bieber, Usher and Sean Kingston. His 2013 collaboration with Tyga, “Molly,” reached No. 66 on the Billboard Hot 100. He was featured as Mally Mall in the VH1 reality TV serie...
Insomniac Ruling Upheld Despite Appeal That Judge Was Heavily Medicated
The dispute is linked to a disagreement over the future of the How Sweet It Is music festival, which ran from 1999 to 2001. Rotella helped revive and finance the festival in 2005 but had a falling out with Alper and Ballou over the future of the event in 2010. Alper and Ballou claimed Rotella created a competing event called Beyond Wonderland, which still operates today, and that they were owed a piece of the festival. The legal fight went to arbitration, where the case was heard by Schiavelli, who eventually ruled against Alper and Ballou, saying the men bore most of the responsibility for the collapse of their relationship with Rotella and Insomniac due to their “cavalier and essentially non-negotiable attitude.” Schiavelli also noted that the lawsuit wasn’t filed against Insom...
Chris Cornell’s Family Settles Malpractice Lawsuit With Beverly Hills Doctor
Filed by the Cornells’ lawyer, Melissa Lerner, the motion requested that all documents pertaining to the settlement remain sealed or redacted, citing privacy concerns. Lerner writes that “troubled individuals” have “harassed” the Cornell family in the wake of Chris Cornell’s death, including by threatening the lives of Toni and Christopher. A lawyer for the Cornells tells Billboard the settlement agreement is still subject to court approval. An attorney for Koblin did not immediately return a request for comment. Filed in Nov. 2018, the Cornells’ lawsuit claimed that Koblin and his Beverly Hills practice “negligently and repeatedly” prescribed medication to Cornell that clouded his judgment and cognition, leading him to engage in reckless behaviors that ultimately resulted in his suic...
Sydney Pollack’s Lawyer May Face Trial Over Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace’
Amazing Grace came together from footage shot in 1972 by Pollack of Aretha Franklin’s legendary two-day performance at the Missionary Baptist Church. For years, the movie was held up by demands from the singer herself, even after Elliott got Warner Bros. to release its rights to the footage. Elliott says that before Pollack died, the director helped his efforts to secure a quitclaim deed from WB and never made any rights claim himself. But as Elliott prepared to bring the movie to the Telluride Film Festival in 2015, Tyerman wrote to Elliott about financial compensation for Pollack rights. What rights did Pollack (and his estate) actually have? The director didn’t own copyright to the footage, but in a series of letters and conversations, Tyerman repeatedly represented that Elliott would n...
Michael Jackson’s Likeness Valued at $4.1 Million in Big Tax Court Win for Estate
“From the time he was a child Michael Jackson was famous; and there were times in his life, testified his executor, when he was the most famous person in the world,” writes Holmes. “There were certainly years when he was the most well-known popular-music star, and even after his death there have been years when he was the world’s highest-earning entertainer. But there were also many years when he was more famous for his unusual behavior and not his unusual talent. And there were some years where his fame was turned infamous by serious accusations of the most noisome acts. We make no particular judgment about what Jackson did or is alleged to have done, but we must decide how what he did and is alleged to have done affected the value of what he left behind.” The...
Rapper Tray Savage’s Accused Killer Denied Bail
Jackson’s private attorney, Thomas Hallock, had argued against denying his client bail, explaining that Jackson was cooperative with authorities and left Chicago only after his grandmother’s death from cancer last fall, the Chicago Tribune reported. But Judge David R. Navarro granted the prosecution’s no bail request, adding that Jackson faced natural life in prison if convicted of killing Young, who had been signed to Chief Keef‘s Glory Boyz Entertainment imprint. Prosecutors said in court that Jackson and Young were affiliated with the same street gang faction but gave no indication what prompted the shooting. Authorities said the men briefly “interacted” with each other from their vehicles before they drove away in different directions. Prosecutors said both vehicles lat...
How Billie Holiday’s Estate Has Led ‘An Afterlife of Tragedy’
“It’s not right that someone who was as awful to Billie Holiday as Louis McKay was would then have control of her likeness and her money,” says Danyel Smith, a former Billboard editor whose Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women In Pop is due early next year. “And it’s insane, at the end of the day, control of her money and likeness is in the hands of people who didn’t know her or have a relationship with her.” The last year has been unusually active for Holiday’s estate. She’s the subject of two movies: The United States vs. Billie Holiday, plus the Billie documentary that started streaming on-demand in December. Her haunting recording of the civil rights classic “Strange Fruit” took off during last su...
Pretty Ricky’s Baby Blue in Critical Condition After Bowling Alley Shooting
Pretty Ricky member Baby Blue is in critical condition after being shot during an attempted robbery at a south Florida bowling alley on Monday night. In a graphic video circulating on social media, the rapper, born Diamond Blue Smith, is seen lying still on the floor, his body bloodied, near the entrance of the bowling alley while a friend frantically screams out for help. After a few seconds, two other men rushed to help the rapper who soon became responsive and rolled onto his side. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share o...
Harvey Weinstein Moves Closer to Extradition to Los Angeles
Judge Case set an April 30 court hearing ahead of likely setting a date for Weinstein to be extradited to California. During Monday’s hearing, the court heard from Norman Effman, an attorney for Weinstein, who asked for a delay on a likely extradition to allow his client to undergo key medical procedures now scheduled by the New York prisons system. He also requested that Weinstein be virtually arraigned on the California indictment from New York to give more time for his medical treatments. “It seems disruptive to undo what New York State has done to care for a person in their custody, and to ensure that he is receiving appropriate medical care,” Effman told Judge Case. At the same time, Weinstein’s legal team — which included Mark Werksman, a California atto...
Howard Weitzman, Power Attorney Who Represented Michael Jackson Estate, Dies at 81
Weitzman, a partner at Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump, was a perennial on Billboard’s Top Music Lawyers list, including the latest edition, which came out last week. The litigation heavyweight was cited most recently for his work with the Jackson estate, most notably for its dispute with HBO over the Leaving Neverland documentary and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal’s December ruling in favor of the estate that the case must by arbitrated. The lead attorney on more than 300 civil and criminal jury trials, according to the bio on his firm’s website, Weitzman represented some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment during various points in his career, including O.J. Simpson, Marlon Brando, Ozzy and Sharon Osborne, Magic Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as talent agencies ...
Kesha Seizes on New Free Speech Law for Counterattack Against Dr. Luke
But as the case creeps along, now towards a trial date that’s expected to come this autumn, the ground beneath the parties’ feet has shifted. Last year, inspired by individuals like Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein, New York passed a law intended to protect free speech from frivolous lawsuits. The anti-SLAPP legislation has many components, and it may be working as libel defendants are on a massive winning streak. Now, Kesha — advised by O’Melveny’s Daniel Petrocelli and Leah Godesky — is hoping to use the anti-SLAPP’s law’s allowance for a counterclaim to pursue compensatory and punitive damages plus attorneys’ fees and costs that she has incurred over seven long years defending what Kesha’s legal team believes to be a meritless defamation suit. ...
Danny Wimmer Presents Launches BrandMark, With Maureen Valker-Barlow at Helm
Danny Wimmer Presents has spun off its sponsorship and branding department into BrandMark Agency, a wholly owned standalone business run by DWP’s evp Maureen Valker-Barlow who will now serve as president of BrandMark. Valker-Barlow joined DWP in 2019 after holding various sales roles at record labels and at agencies with clients that include Anheuser-Busch, BMG, Bushmills Irish Whiskey, Cantu Beauty, Jack Daniel’s, KAMP (K-Pop Festival), Kona Brewing Co., Manic Panic, Proof Media Mix, Rockstar Energy Drink, Shelter Music Group and Zenni Optics, among others. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by cha...
