Photo Credit: Suge Knight by Nick Leisure / CC by 2.0
Snoop Dogg, Suge Knight, Lucian Grainge, and Jimmy Iovine are all being sued for allegedly defrauding a former Death Row Records executive.
Lydia Harris filed the $107 million lawsuit in Texas on Tuesday, accusing Snoop Dogg, Suge Knight, Death Row Records, Interscope Records, and executive Jimmy Iovine of cheating her out of a lucrative judgement she had been previously granted. Harris claims she was not only a co-founder of Death Row Records, but its first vice president.
As the wife of former Death Row Records financier and convicted drug kingpin Michael “Harry-O” Harris, Lydia Harris was awarded the original $107 million judgement in 2005 following a civil trial over the couple’s role in founding the label.
But Harris is alleging that Knight and the others named hid financial records, filed fraudulent motions, and abused bankruptcy court to avoid paying her the judgement. She says she has yet to receive a single payment in the 20 years since she won the suit against Knight and other alleged co-conspirators.
Notably, Snoop was added to the lawsuit as the current owner of Death Row Records. He acquired the label in 2022 in a deal with MNRK Music Group. According to Harris, Suge Knight used “systematic misrepresentation and fraudulent telecommunications directed at the Plaintiff in Texas” in order to avoid paying her. She began her initial legal battle against Knight in 2022.
Harry-O and Lydia Harris’ dealings with Knight began in the 1980s, when the former invested $1.5 million in Death Row Records’ launch — under the expectation that the couple would retain a 50% profit share in the business.
But Knight became “increasingly distant” with Harry-O, who was serving a 28-year prison sentence for crimes including cocaine trafficking, kidnapping, and attempted murder. That led to Lydia Harris filing suit against Knight to pursue the matter on her own.
She is seeking punitive damages, the recovery of assets owed to her, and a full accounting of Death Row Records’ finances.
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