Ryan Leslie didn't follow through on a promise he made, and now he's learning the cost of it. Which is $1 million.
The singer and producer lost his laptop while overseas, when it was stolen out of the trunk of his Mercedes while on tour in 2010. Leslie put out an offer of $1 million to the finder of his laptop in a YouTube video, as a reward. However, when German auto-repair shop owner Armin Augstein found the laptop while walking his dogs, and turned it over the police, Leslie refused to fork over the reward.
As the NY Post reports, Augstein took Leslie to court over the matter, and testified against Ryan in federal court in Manhattan. The verdict was in his favor-- Ryan was ordered to hand over the reward. Augstein said, following the verdict, "I’m very happy . . . that the American judicial system, which is so totally different from ours, functioned so well with a jury that are not professionals and are laymen."
Leslie said of the case, "The reasons I defended myself in the case are the same reasons I believe Mr. Augstein is not entitled to the reward." Apparently there was a caveat with the reward, which was that Ryan would be able to access unreleased multitrack songs on his hard drive, which he wasn't able to do following his laptop's return.
Ryan Leslie tweeted following the result, "Ain’t no way to get around ups & downs.’ Jury of my peers rules for the plaintiff."
Do you guys agree with the verdict?
