Judge Orders Sony To Pay $160 Million For Role In 2017 Cousin Stizz Concert Shooting

It’s been five years since the deadly shooting that occurred at a show in which Cousin Stizz was on the bill.

A new development regarding the incident shows that Sony is actually partly responsible for the tragedy.

Rapper Coustin Stizz performs onstage during day one of the Rolling Loud Festival at Banc of California Stadium. (Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

As the 2017 performance at the Atlanta venue, The Masquerade was ongoing, a shooter opened fire on the crowd. The Boston native was one of the performers getting ready to take the stage later in the night. The shooter is responsible for hitting four innocent members of the audience. Two of them, Giovan Diaz and Ewell Ynoa, passed away from their injuries sustained that night.

The police were later successful in identifying the suspect as 25-year-old Jonathan Bautista. He was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts of murder.

On December 15, a DeKalb County judge ordered Sony Music Holdings to pay $160 million in damages for the incident. The judge labels the company’s failure to protect concertgoers as the reason. Additionally, the victims’ families allege the venue didn’t have proper security present. The awarded money will go to the families of the victims.

Furthermore, the Beasley Allen Law Firm is responsible for filing the lawsuit in 2018. They named Sony and RCA Records, as well as Live Nation and Masquerade as defendants in the case.

To make matters worse, reports indicate that Sony never even showed up for the trial.

Consider what the court elocutions of rappers like Gunna or Slimelife Shawty mean in terms of civil liability. Musicians are stating plainly that their label was a front for criminal activity. There are dozens of victims of violent crime – all potential litigants – in this case.

— George Chidi (find me on Mastodon) (@neonflag) December 17, 2022

“One of these men had been told he would be a father just a few hours before the shooting happened. Combine that with the fact the concert endangered everyone, and this Defendant refused to participate in the legal process, and you get the type of verdict we saw here,” Atlanta lawyer Parker Miller says in a statement, explaining the outcome.

Earlier this year, Cousin Stizz dropped off his latest project, Just For You. Boasting a feature from Curren$y, the 13-track album finds the 30-year-old reflecting on years of abiding by label restrictions.

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