Jury finds Rain liable for $8.086M in damages for canceled Hawaii concert
Advertiser Staff
Korean entertainer Rain and his management company committed fraud and breach of contract when he abruptly canceled a 2007 concert here and must pay $8.086 million in damages to the event's promoter, a federal court jury decided this morning.
The jury found Rain personally liable for more than $3 million of the award and his management company, JYP Entertainment Co., Ltd., responsible for most of the rest.
Two other promoters, StarM Entertainment and Revolution Entertainment, which did not defend themselves in the suit, were found liable for some $500,000 of the total award.
Attorney Eric Seitz, who represented plaintiff Click Entertainment and its owner, Seong Su Lee, said outside court he will move to collect the judgment as soon as possible.
"He's a very talented young man and I'm sorry he got caught up in this," Seitz said of Rain, whose real name is Jung Ji-Hoon.
But the jury found that "there was a fraud perpetrated for a long time and continued to be perpetrated right up to the trial," Seitz said.
He said if the entertainer resists paying the judgment, he risks "losing his career because nobody will touch him."
The attorneys for Rain left the courthouse without commenting on the verdict.