A newly-discovered 327-page document filed by the lawyers for the mother of Lil Peep aims to enhance her wrongful death lawsuit by arguing that First Access Entertainment “ran the tour as a lethal debauch.”
A hearing on First Access Entertainment’s motion for summary judgement is set to take place today, February 10th. Ahead of the hearing, Pitchfork obtained – via online records – a mammoth document filled with evidence that was filed by lawyers for Liza Womack, Peep’s mother, on January 28th.
The rapper – real name Gustav Åhr – died from a fatal drug overdose on November 15th, 2017. Womack has insisted ever since that it was a wrongful death.
Today’s hearing could see a Los Angeles Superior Court judge decide the crux of the case before it even makes it to a jury trial. Legal experts even believe that Womack’s lawsuit could change the way the music industry views drugs.
Central to the document’s evidence are unsealed text messages that reportedly reveal “drug-infected mismanagement.” Texts sent by Peep’s tour manager Belinda Mercer back in 2017 are thought to be key by Womack.
In October 2021, lawyers representing First Access Entertainment and Mercer tried to have a judge seal seven pages of documents, including the latter’s texts to colleagues, arguing that they contained information that was private or self-incriminating.
Womack’s lawyers responded: “These seven pages help tell the story of the drug-infected mismanagement that is part of (Womack’s) central narrative and led to her son’s death.”
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“What these documents mostly contain are exchanges that reveal FAE tour management as dangerous, discordant, inept, and engaged in conduct that contributed to (Peep)’s death,” they argued. An L.A. judge then ruled in January that the documents “do not warrant sealing.”
There are several important findings in the 372-page document. Text messages between Mercer and First Access Entertainment colleagues show that both parties “mishandled the tour, including by serving as the tour drug dealer, in a way that led to (Peep)’s death,” as argued by Womack’s lawyers.
Mercer had been detained at the Canadian border in October 2017, an event that she called “the most mortifying experience of my life.” Several years later, in a September 2021 deposition, she insisted that she was detained while others on the tour bus were not because “they found substances on the bus and some were in (her) bag.”
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Mercer had allegedly been using and providing ketamine during the tour. According to last year’s deposition, Peep had asked Mercer for drugs potentially as many as 100 times. She repeatedly invoked her right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment when the topic of illegal drugs arose.
According to the documents, Mercer made two Venmo payments to someone named Riley Fatch on November 6th, 2017. Again she invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid describing the exact reasons for the payments. While memos stated that the payments were for “bus restock”, Fatch wasn’t an employee on the tour. Fatch was later indicted on federal drug charges, although these were terminated after he died in 2019.
As Womack’s lawyers argue, “Mercer’s testimony suggests the dysfunctional, ultimately lethal state of (Peep)’s U.S. tour.”
For more on this topic, follow the Hip Hop Observer.
