After a judge ruled against him in the case for $1 million reward money for having a stolen lap top returned, Ryan Leslie has now been ordered to pay an additional $180,000 to the plaintiff in interest.
In 2010, Leslie lost his backback while in Cologne, Germany and made a YouTube clip offering a reward for its return which started at $20,000, but rose all the way to $1 million. Armin Augstein found the backpack, and returned it to the singer along with the laptop that held valuable session files. Although, Leslie balked on paying the reward once he discovered the session files were not there, and there were only MP3s of the tracks. A judge ruled against him and ordered him to pay the $1 million he had offered as reward.
David DeStefano, Leslie's laywer, his adamant that his client should not have had to pay the reward since the valuable files were missing, "He made a second reward video and offered $1 million for just the intellectual property on the external hard drive and computer, the session files," adding "They're different from just an MP3, MP3s are nothing for a producer or a studio engineer, they can't do anything with them. They need the session files. These were his compositions."
Ryan Leslie and his lawyer are not contending the ruling for an additional $180,000 as they plan to appeal the entire decision.
[Via HHDX]