Dame Dash's legal woes just got a lot more complicated.
Per TMZ, Dash has been ordered to pay $300,000 to author Edwyna Brooks, after the author won the lawsuit she filed a year ago. Brooks and Dash reportedly made a deal in 2015 for Dame to direct the film Mafietta, based on Brooks' series of books of the same name. According to documents obtained by TMZ, Brooks claimed Dash wasted production time and money while pursuing various side projects. After Brooks fired Dame from the projet, she says he continued to claim co-authorship of the film, which he tried to sell on iTunes as well as his Dame Dash Studios website without Brooks' permission. Dame reportedly felt like he was entitled to do so because of a copyrighting issue.
But according to the judge, Dash did not have the grounds to market the 2017 fim, and was “apparently incapable of exercising ordinary civility” during the January trial. According to a report from the New York Daily News, Dash was belligerent throughout the trial, and even accused an attorney of having breath that smelled like "doo-doo."
Although Brooks was awarded the $300,000, her legal battle with Dash is far from over, as he intends to appeal the court's decision.
"The copyright claim was incorrectly decided in our opinion as you were the dominant author," Dash and his legal said in a statement. "In any event the damages awarded were based on pure speculation so both findings are being appealed.
Brooks released a statement of her own, saying Dash essentially took something that wasn't his. “Damon Dash claims to help African-American women while stealing from me and my family,” she said through her lawyer. "He stole my dream and took my Mafietta brand as his own without consent or any credit to me, its creator."
