NY jury: Rapper 50 Cent must pay $2M in sex-tape lawsuit
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50 Cent arrives at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday, May 17, 2015, at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Published Friday, July 24, 2015 | 12:50 p.m.
Updated Friday, July 24, 2015 | 5:45 p.m.
NEW YORK — Rapper 50 Cent must pay an additional $2 million in punitive damages to a woman featured in a sex tape posted online, a jury decided Friday.
The decision came two weeks after jurors ordered the multiplatinum-selling artist to pay $5 million to Lastonia Leviston.
Leviston's invasion-of-privacy lawsuit argues that 50 Cent, born Curtis Jackson III, posted online a crudely narrated 13-minute sex-tape she made with a boyfriend in 2008. In the video, he taunts rival rapper Rick Ross, who isn't featured in the video but has a child with Leviston.
After the jury's verdict, Jackson filed for bankruptcy protection in Connecticut.
A lawyer for Leviston had urged jurors to award her $15 million. Jackson's attorney had asked them to order he pay $700,000.
Jackson's attorney, James Renard, said in a statement Friday that he was disappointed with the verdict. He said Jackson will ask the court to reduce the jury's award.