Less than a week after the New York Post published an article titled “Ex-Fugee rapper bailed on his own 9/11 benefit concert,” Pras Michel has filed a $30 million defamation lawsuit maintaining that much of the story was untrue.
The article was posted on October 5 and reported that Pras didn’t show up as the headliner for a 9/11 charity event in Hell’s Kitchen to benefit his own foundation. The article also stated that Pras’ Hope for Them foundation bounced a check to the venue, had falsely claimed MTV was sponsoring the event and failed to register the charity with state officials.
In Pras’ complaint filed on Wednesday, Pras says he “has never owned nor been an owner, director or officer of the Foundation,” that he never guaranteed a performance at the event and that the event had nothing to do with 9/11.
According to the complaint, the newspaper’s reporters made no effort to follow-up on this to determine his role with the Foundation, and instead tarnished his reputation by connecting him to a charity that supposedly bounced a check and made other alleged misdeeds.
“The drafting, publishing and dissemination of the Article was accomplished with a reckless disregard for the truth,” states the complaint. “The reckless ‘reporting’ would be deemed as such had a high school student drafted the Article. However, the authors are seasoned, experienced ‘investigative journalists’ employed by one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the world.”
Pras maintains that the slander has put his major transactions at risk.
One of those transactions, coincidentally reported by the NYP, involved being part of a $2.2 billion bid to purchase New York’s Plaza Hotel, Dream Downtown and London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.
Of course Pras Michel is a former member of the Fugees.
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