Last week, it was reported that rap mogul Jay Z had been subpoenaed over failing to testify in court regarding a $200 million Rocawear deal he made back in 2007. While Jay wasn't under any sort of criminal investigation, he was asked to testify in response to some shady accounting from Iconix Brand Group Inc., who purchased Rocawear assets in the deal over 10 years ago.
In response to the subpoena, TMZ has learned that Jay will, in fact, be testifying in court. However, the life of a business man/business, man is a tough one, and Jay will be fighting to cut his appearance on the stand as short as possible.
Jay is about to embark on a massive 45-show world tour with his wife, Beyonce, and being forced to testify in court will cut into his preparations for the tour, and potentially impact the jobs and performance of dozens if not hundreds of staff working on setting up the tour. As such, Jay is supposed to appear in court Tuesday, to explain to SEC investigators why he won't be able to testify for longer than a single day.
The judge in the case has also set an early date of May 11 for Jay's testimony which he also claims is too close to the beginning of the tour.
How much damage a few days of testimony can have on his tour preparations is something that we mortals can probably never understand, but this could be Jay's latest ploy to finesse his way out of having to testify at all.
