Dame Dash has been hit with a default judgement in a defamation suit against him from producer Josh Webber.
In court documents filed on Tuesday (February 18), Judge John F. Walter slammed the music mogul for “repeatedly violat[ing] the court’s orders,” including scheduling mediation and filing pre-trial documents.
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Walter has now issued a default judgement in Webber’s favor, and given the film producer until March 3 to submit proof of any damages he’s incurred in the ongoing legal battle.
The suit decided this week is over Dash’s March 30, 2024 appearance on the podcast Earn Your Leisure. According to Webber, Dash lied when he claimed that Webber “stole” from him by winning nearly $1 million in a lawsuit back in 2022.
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“I had a judgment. And I knew this dickhead Chris Brown (pause) and Josh Webber (pause) and Muddy Waters…Chris Brown the lawyer. I went through four trials with the same lawyer…What I lost was defamation because these guys trigger me and steal my shit…you think there is freedom of speech, it’s really not…” he said on the podcast.
Webber claims that as a result of Dash’s lies, a $4 million contract to direct a movie starring Billy Bob Thornton and Scott Eastwood was cancelled — which is exactly what Webber is suing for.
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Dame Dash and Josh Webber’s longstanding legal issues date back to 2016.
Although Dame was originally plucked to direct the film Dear Frank in 2016, he was ultimately removed from the project after he was deemed unfit for the job. Webber and Muddy Water Pictures claimed he was always high on set while shooting the film on his Sherman Oaks property. They eventually finished the film without him.
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They then sued Dash for copyright infringement and defamation in 2019, claiming he tried to shop Dear Frank around as his own. They also alleged he sent promotional ephemera to networks such as BET but changed the film’s title to The List. Dame argued they shot the film at his home using all of his equipment then stole the footage to do the movie without him.
The jury failed to see Dash’s perspective and handed down its decision in 2022.
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Dash’s 33.3 percent stake in Roc-A-Fella Records was recently auctioned off to satisfy his massive debt – but he owed so many people that Webber didn’t receive a dime.
Dame also owed $193k in back child support, and faced a lawsuit filed by photographer Monique Bunn, another by a writer named Edwyna Brooks and a whopping $8 million tax debt to the state of New York.
The winning $1 million bid for the shares was placed by an anonymous New York state government employee – and it covered the back child support, with the rest being put toward the back taxes.
Just after the auction, Webber filed a request seeking ownership documents from the embattled mogul in an effort to get an order that forces Dame to deliver his media company Poppington, LLC and/or copyrights to films he produced to the United States Marshal.
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Weeks later, Webber and his legal team also filed to have Dame’s engagement ring be auctioned off.
