Judge Upholds $107 Million Judgment Against Suge Knight: Report
Suge Knight has to pay up.
On Monday (March 2), Los Angeles' Fox 11 reported that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Sotelo has upheld the previous $107 million judgment against the former Death Row Records mogul that was originally awarded in 2005.
The plaintiff, a woman by the name of Lydia Harris, had originally filed the suit claiming that she and her husband Michael "Harry-O" Harris invested in Death Row Records in its infancy back in 1989, and that she was the company's first vice president. However, she said in her lawsuit that as soon as the label started making real money, she was pushed out and cut off from the 50 percent of profits she says she was supposed to receive.
Though she won in 2005, Harris requested Judge Sotelo void the judgment in September 2019, citing issues with how her lawyers from the firm of Wasserman, Comden & Casselman won the case some 14 years prior. Her basis was that her former attorneys worked with Suge's bankruptcy trustee and others to use her to "wrongfully obtain the judgment." Sotelo granted the request to void it at the time of the request, but then four months later in December 2019, he reinstated the judgment.
In his December decision, the judge revealed that Harris' former lawyers had filed court papers asking that the judgment be reinstated and that they proved they had already paid Harris more than $1 million on it. Judge Sotelo also revealed that Harris' former lawyers had sued her current attorney, Dermot Givens, just months after the original 2005 judgment, alleging a conspiracy existed to cheat them out of their percentage of the profits through a secret settlement between Harris and Knight.
In that same December decision, Sotelo declared Harris' former lawyers are still entitled to 40 percent of the judgment. The case was back in court on Monday because Harris wanted the judge to reconsider matters once again, but he refused.
"This is a very old case with big names and big numbers," Judge Sotelo said.
XXL has reached out to Suge Knight's reps for comment.
Suge Knight is currently serving out his 28-year sentence for manslaughter after killing one man and injuring another when he ran them over on the set of Straight Outta Compton in January of 2015.
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