Although Jermaine Dupri paid off his enormous tax lien of $3 million earlier this year, he's still suffering from financial problems. The SunTrust Bank has launched a new lawsuit against Dupri, because he has failed to pay back completely a $4.8 million loan he took out back in 2010.
TMZ reports that Jermaine Dupri paid back over half of it, but SunTrust is still suing the artist for $2 million, which includes the balance due and interest. The stitch here is that in order to get the loan, Jermaine had to put up collateral in the form of copyrights and songs from his various artists, including Bow Wow, Da Brat and Xscape. Thus, if he doesn't pay it back, he's in jeopardy of losing some of the music rights to his So So Def label.
No word from Dupri at this time.
[UPDATE: Jermaine Dupri Files Counterclaim Against SunTrust Bank]
Although Jermaine Dupri neglected to respond to the lawsuit over his Lamborghini, making the judge enter a default judgement against him that he has to cough up the $79,000, he has at least responded to the suit from SunTrust Bank.
SunTrust Bank sued Jermaine Dupri for $2 million, after he stopped paying off a $4.8 million loan he originally took out in 2009. In response, Dupri has filed a "Answer and Counterclaims" lawsuit, which claims that the bank breached its contract with him.
According to the music mogul's counterclaim, the original loan agreement detailed that SunTrust would take Dupri's EMI publishing royalties as loan repayment to cover his Federal and State income taxes, however, they never did this, which caused tax liabilities for Dupri.
Dupri also states that in 2010 he spoke with the executives of the bank to modify the details of his loan, eliminating the requirement that the bank make the tax payments. The loan was restructured at that time, allowing SunTrust to decide on the amount of a fixed payment, however Dupri felt they decided on an unrealistic amount based off his income.
The counterclaim continues to allege that Dupri never received a copy of the closing papers, nor did his legal and financial reps review the revised loan documents prior to Dupri signing them, as it had been agreed upon in "good faith" because Dupri says they had a long and trusted relationship with each other.
Finally, Dupri claims that the loan was not in default before 2010, which is when it was modified from a variable loan to a fixed payment loan.
[UPDATE: Dupri Claims He Was Taken Advantage Of By Personal Banker]
In a new development in Jermaine Dupri's counterclaim against SunTrust Bank, the mogul has claimed the bank "wined-and-dined him, then treated him like an uneducated idiot".
According to TMZ, his personal SunTrust banker, whom he'd worked with for years, was lenient with loan payments and hooked him up with dinners, ATL Falcons tickets and much more. After securing a $5 million loan with him in 2009, Dupri claims the man took advantage of his lack of education and convinced him to sign a new loan agreement quickly, for his benefit. However, the new agreement allegedly increased his loan payments, which caused him to default and forced him to sell off his $20 million music catalog and $2.5 million studio.
That's all for now.
