Dame Dash’s legal issues don’t appear to be simmering down anytime soon after the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder took a colossal hit in court this week when filmmaker Josh Webber and Muddy Water Pictures accused the music executive of copyright infringement and defamation in a lawsuit pertaining to a movie titled “Dear Frank.” Now Dame has been ordered to cough up over half a million dollars.
According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, the two entities responsible for the film, described as a comedy, drama, and thriller, sued Dame in 2016, claiming he tried to shop and advertise the project as his own to networks such as BET under a changed title: “The List.”
The 50-year-old also reportedly was dropped from the movie in 2018, after his collaborators no longer saw him fit for the role of director. The outlet reported that the businessman often would come to set under the influence while shooting the movie at his Sherman Oaks property. The film was eventually completed without the executive.
However, the New York native argued that they shot the film at his home using all of his equipment then stole the footage to do the movie without him, but the court was not on his side and ordered him to pay $805,000.
The jury awarded $30,000 to Muddy Water Pictures for copyright infringement and another $125,000 in punitive damages, while Webber received $400,000 in compensatory damages for defamation. Jurors also gave the filmmaker another $250,000 in punitive damages.
In a statement to the outlet, Chris Brown, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said, “I will get every penny due to my clients.” This isn’t the first time Brown has met Dame in a courtroom.
In 2020, Brown won a $300,000 judgment for another client, author Edwyna Brooks. The writer testified that she met Dame at one of his Poppington seminars in Albemarle, North Carolina, in 2015.
She offered him 50 percent to direct a movie based on her book series “Mafietta,” and bring in celebrities, but their working relationship fell apart shortly before the movie’s production started. Brown also represented Monique Bunn in a $52 million suit after she accused the record producer of groping her.
Dame has yet to respond.
