A Philadelphia man has hit Jay-Z and Damon Dash with a $15 million lawsuit claming that Roc-A-Fella stole the concept for the “State Property” movie from his novel. Antonne Jones filed the lawsuit earlier this month in Manhattan Federal Court alleging that “State Property” was based on his novel “The Family: A Philadelphia Mob Story” and was used without his permission.
Jones claims he met with Jay-Z and Damon Dash in 1998 and offered to sell the movie rights to his book for $500,000. The pair countered with an offer of only $50,000 which Jones claims to have rejected.
“State Property” was released in 2002 and starred Beanie Sigel. The film’s distributor Lions Gate is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Jay-Z has also been sued by a former waitress at his 40/40 Club who claims the establishment doesn’t pay its employees the legal minimum wage and keeps a percentage of the workers tips. According to management for the 40/40 Club, Williams only worked at
the club for four days in Dec. of 2005 and the allegations are fals
