{"id":6421,"date":"2025-06-11T15:48:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T15:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/jimmy-buffett-battle-halle-bailey-ysl-rico-more-music-law-news\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T15:48:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T15:48:17","slug":"jimmy-buffett-battle-halle-bailey-ysl-rico-more-music-law-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/jimmy-buffett-battle-halle-bailey-ysl-rico-more-music-law-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Buffett Battle, Halle Bailey, YSL RICO & More Music Law News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tTHE BIG STORY<\/strong>: Two years after Jimmy Buffett\u2019s death, his widow and his longtime former business manager are locked in a legal war over the singer-songwriter\u2019s $275 million estate.<\/p>\n

\n\tJane Buffett, his wife of 46 years, and Rick Mozenter, an accountant and financial advisor to Buffett for decades, launched dueling court actions last week accusing the other of hostility and mismanagement. At issue is control of the singer\u2019s trust, which holds, among other assets, a lucrative 20% stake in his Margaritaville chain of resorts and restaurants.<\/p>\n

\n\tJane\u2019s lawyers say Mozenter has been \u201copenly hostile and adversarial\u201d and has \u201cfailed to perform even the most basic tasks required of him\u201d in his role as co-trustee. Mozenter\u2019s attorneys say Buffett clearly intended to limit his wife\u2019s control over the trust \u2013 but that this has \u201cmade Jane very angry\u201d and caused her to be \u201ccompletely uncooperative.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor more, go read Rachel Scharf\u2019s full story on the battle over Buffett.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re reading\u00a0The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from\u00a0<\/em>Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday,\u00a0go subscribe here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOther top stories this week\u2026\t<\/h3>\n

\n\tCUSTODY BATTLE <\/strong>\u2013 Halle Bailey and ex-boyfriend DDG exchanged scathing court filings amid their increasingly acrimonious custody battle over their one-year-old son. In his petition, the rapper (Darryl Dwayne Granberry Jr.) claimed that Bailey had been abusive and repeatedly threatened self-harm; in her response, Bailey said those claims were exaggerated and that DDG\u2019s filing was \u201ccold retribution to embarrass, humiliate and caused me additional emotional distress.\u201d The back-and-forth came a month after Bailey sought and won a restraining order by claiming the rapper had physically abused her, including in the presence of their son.<\/p>\n

\n\tDIDDY TRIAL RECAP<\/strong> \u2013 The sex-trafficking trial of Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs continued into a fifth week, starting with the judge denying a motion for a mistrial based on testimony about an infamous alleged incident in which the rap mogul dangled a woman from a 17th-floor balcony. Don\u2019t miss our full recap of Week 4, which included testimony about the balcony incident; testimony about Diddy buying a surveillance video with $100,000 in cash in a paper bag; and the start of testimony from an alleged victim named \u201cJane\u201d over being forced to participate in marathon \u201cfreak-offs.\u201d The trial is expected to run until early July.<\/p>\n

\n\tYSL CASE CLOSED<\/strong> \u2013 More than three years after Young Thug, Gunna and dozens of others were indicted in Atlanta on gang charges, the last co-defendant pleaded guilty \u2013 a moment that marks the formal end of a sprawling, controversial criminal case that had captivated the music industry for years. The final closure came seven months after Thug pleaded guilty and received only probation, a stunning defeat for prosecutors that had labeled him a dangerous gang boss.<\/p>\n

\n\tBIG PIMPIN QUOTES <\/strong>\u2013 Jay-Z\u2019s legal nemesis Tony Buzbee asked a federal judge to dismiss the rapper\u2019s defamation case with an unusual flourish: quoting the lyrics from the star\u2019s \u201cBig Pimpin.\u201d Buzbee, a Texas lawyer who briefly filed a rape lawsuit against the rapper before dropping it without a settlement, claimed in the court filing that the 2000 song\u2019s references to prostitution describe Jay\u2019s views on \u201chow men should treat women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLYRICS LITIGATION<\/strong> \u2013 Lyrics provider Musixmatch filed a response to a recent antitrust lawsuit from rival LyricFind, calling the case \u201cmeritless\u201d and arguing that the rival was \u201choping it can obtain through litigation what it was unable to win in the marketplace.\u201d The response came two months after LyricFind accused Musixmatch of seeking to monopolize the market for providing lyrics to streamers like Spotify by signing an \u201cunprecedented\u201d deal with Warner Music.<\/p>\n

\n\tANOTHER TAYLOR STALKER<\/strong> \u2013 Taylor Swift won a temporary restraining order against an alleged stalker named Brian Jason Wagner, a 45-year-old Colorado man who the pop superstar claims showed up at her Los Angeles home numerous times over the past year to falsely claim she\u2019s the mother of his child. In seeking the court order, Swift argued Wagner\u2019s conduct \u201cmakes me fear for my safety and the safety of my family.\u201d Swift has had trouble with stalkers before, including a man arrested last year after being spotted dozens of times outside her Manhattan apartment.<\/p>\n

\n\tLIL DURK BAIL DENIED<\/strong> \u2013 The drill rapper was once again denied release on bond in his murder-for-hire case, leaving him to sit in jail until his trial (currently scheduled for October). The federal judge overseeing the case \u2013 which claims he hired gunman to carry out a failed hit on rival Quando Rondo \u2013 noted that rapper was apprehended trying to board a flight to Dubai (United Arab Emirates is a non-extradition country) and might try to escape again if let free.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEFAMATORY DOC?<\/strong> \u2013 Russell Simmons filed a defamation lawsuit against HBO over a 2020 documentary called On The Record that focused on the sexual assault allegations against him. Simmons said the movie disregarded or \u201csuppressed\u201d key evidence in his favor \u2014 including \u201cCIA-grade polygraph results\u201d and Oprah Winfrey\u2019s withdrawal from the project \u2013 that would have refuted and rebutted\u201d the allegations that were \u201cfalsely made against plaintiff in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tROYALTIES ROW <\/strong>\u2013 Sony filed a lawsuit against the streaming platform LiveOne and its subsidiary Slacker Radio, claiming they owe $2.6 million in unpaid licensing fees but have refused to stop playing the label\u2019s music, including tracks by Beyonc\u00e9, Miley Cyrus and Tate McRae.<\/p>\n

\n\tNEWJEANS COURT ORDER <\/strong>\u2013 A dispute between K-pop band\u202fNewJeans\u202fand its agency\u202fADOR, a HYBE subsidiary, escalated when a South Korean court approved a stricter legal measure restricting the group\u2019s independent activities. The court ordered each member (Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein) to pay\u202f1 billion KRW ($734,000)\u202ffor any unauthorized entertainment activity \u2013 meaning fines could total $3.6 million for a single uncleared group appearance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE BIG STORY: Two years after Jimmy Buffett\u2019s death, his widow and his longtime former business manager are locked in a legal war over the singer-songwriter\u2019s $275 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4757,435,6207,5926,5807,153,593,310,2513,3990],"class_list":["post-6421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-bailey","tag-battle","tag-buffett","tag-halle","tag-jimmy","tag-law","tag-music","tag-news","tag-rico","tag-ysl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}