Young Thug’s lawyer is firing back at the management firm behind the rapper’s luxury apartment complex in Georgia after it finally answered his $1 million lawsuit with suggestions the “Bubbly” artist played a role in the loss of his Louis Vuitton bag stuffed with cash, diamond-encrusted jewelry, and a valuable trove of unreleased music.
JLB Peachtree Management says in a new court filing that Young Thug’s own “negligence and failure to exercise ordinary care” may be to blame for the series of events that led up to an unknown person allegedly claiming his bag from the building’s concierge holding area without his consent. The firm does admit that one of its staffers retrieved the bag from beside the rapper’s black Lamborghini in a complex parking garage after the item was reported by a fellow resident; but it denies it assumed a duty to protect the property and is asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit.
The rapper’s lawyer, Charles Hoffecker, says that the firm’s “blanket denial” has a huge hole in it. “The suggestion my client’s negligence — if any — outweighs the defendants’ ignores the simple facts the defendants’ employees acted to secure the property, knew whose property it was, committed to keep the property safe in a secure location, communicated to my client they would keep the property secure, and then released the property to an unknown person,” Hoffecker tells Rolling Stone. “Now that the defendants have filed their answer, we look forward to pursuing Young Thug’s rights through the litigation process,” he adds.
According to the underlying lawsuit filed last month, Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffery Williams, accidentally left the bag outside his car after returning from a trip to Los Angeles on Nov. 1, 2020. The paperwork claims the concierge staffer at Trace Apartments who retrieved the bag not only contacted Williams to say it was “located and secured” at the concierge holding area but that she had left a written note on the bag instructing other concierge employees not to release it to anyone without contacting her first.
The lawsuit claims that after that communication, another employee entered the secured area and “released the property to an unknown person” without contacting Williams or the initial employee who had written the note.
Williams says that the bag contained $40,000 in cash, a diamond-encrusted watch worth $57,000, a chain with inset diamonds worth $37,000, and a hard drive containing approximately 200 unreleased songs “worth at least an estimated $1,000,000.”
“Defendants voluntarily took possession of plaintiff’s property, notified plaintiff of their possession of his property, and undertook additional efforts to secure it and only return it to a proper party. When defendants released the property to an unknown individual other than plaintiff or plaintiff’s authorized representative, defendants breached a duty of care to plaintiff which had been created by their actions,” the lawsuit filed in Gwinnett County Superior Court states.
From Rolling Stone US
