Jarred Weisfeld, former manager of the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Russell Jones), has filed a $10 million dollar lawsuit against Macmillian Publishers and several affiliates for alleged defamatory and anti-Semetic comments made against him.
The suit was filed Tuesday (February 24) in New York Supreme Court.
Weisfeld’s lawsuit references several alleged incidents where the accused parties made disparaging and stereotypical depictions of his Jewish heritage.
In the November 2008 book Digging for Dirt-The Life and Death of ODB, the lawsuit details that the biography refers to Weisfeld as a “grinning, shady-looking white guy” who “slinked onstage looking like he had just been bar mitzvahed.”
The lawsuit also alleges the offending parties maliciously sought to link Weisfeld with ODB’s untimely death, by alluding to Weisfeld forcing the rapper to film a reality show in his “dying days” and when on “the brink of suicide.”
With additional alleged comments in the book depicting Weisfield as even owning ODB’s “soul,” the lawsuit claims the book makes a “clear and unfortunate literary allusion to the Shakespeare character Shylock, [and] describes Weisfeld as owning 20% of ODB’s very breath.”
For the claimed damage to his reputation in the music industry, Jarred Weisfeld is seeking $10 million dollars in restitution. At press time, a trial date has not been set.