Rowe Arrest Ordered

A judge has ordered the arrest of Rowe Entertainment’s Leonard Rowe, who’s accused of filing spurious debtors’ liens against William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, a law firm and his former lawyers.

New York Southern District Judge Robert Patterson said in court Rowe has “demonstrated a deliberate intent to continue to violate” a Feb. 18 contempt order and “thereby threaten financial harm to the targets of his conduct,” according to legal documents obtained by the New York Law Journal.

Rowe and three other promoters filed suit against William Morris and a number of other agencies and promoters in the late ’90s, claiming black concert promoters were subjected to discriminatory and anti-competitive business practices by others in the industry.

The suit was thrown out in 2005 and denied a writ of certiorari by the Supreme Court but Rowe continued to petition to reopen the case.

Patterson issued a permanent injunction against Rowe in December after he threatened to file more than $1 billion in commercial liens against William Morris and the legal parties, but Rowe proceeded, filing a statement naming the agency as a lien debtor for $500 million and the legal parties as debtors for $100 million, the Law Journal reported.

That led to Patterson’s February contempt order and a hearing March 7 for which Rowe apparently failed to appear.

In a letter to the judge, Rowe wrote he was interested in “how we can sit down seriously and confidentially with intent to resolve this matter, or allowing a jury of 12 to do the same. I am not willing to allow any further fraud or abuse to be directed toward me or my family by these corrupt individuals, law firms or companies,” court documents noted.

An attorney for William Morris as well as one of the law firms named by Rowe told the Law Journal the liens are easy to file without merit and could do serious harm to the alleged debtors’ credit ratings.

“These liens can show up when someone is applying for a mortgage or a car loan and it can result in the denial of credit or credit offered at higher interest rates. Potentially, it can come up when you’re applying to a prospective employer,” attorney Tal Dickstein said.

Rowe had not been arrested as of press time.