Snoop Collared by 7-Year-Old Suit

Virginia lawyer finally catches up to Snoop Dogg with lawsuit filed in 1997

By Sarah Hall Aug 13, 2004 11:05 PMTags

Snoop is in the Dogghouse with a concert promoter who's got a seven-year-old bone to pick with the rapper.

Virginia promoter Patricia Ann Richardson and her lawyer, Joseph W. Kaestner filed a $1 million suit against Snoop in October 1997, after he allegedly tricked Richardson into stopping by a motel to pick up several FedEx boxes for him that contained marijuana.

Richardson claims she remained in the dark about the true contents of the boxes until she was stopped by police and searched while working at a Snoop nightclub performance.

Though neither she nor Snoop (real name: Calvin Broadus) was arrested in the incident, Richardson was reportedly cuffed and taken to a Petersburg, Virginia, police station where she was interrogated.

The experience, Richardson claims, was both defaming and humiliating, and she wants Snoop to pay.

Trouble is, her suit was filed in state court, and since Snoop resides in sunny California, Kaestner had to bide his time waiting for the Doggfather to show his face in Virginia again in order to serve him with papers.

And wait Kaestner did. The suit was dismissed three times for failure to serve the rapper, but the persistent lawyer refiled it each time.

Finally, the legal eagle got his chance--after learning that Snoop would be in Virginia Beach Thursday performing on the Projekt Revolution Tour, he asked the local sheriff's department to drop off the papers.

"Broadus, acting knowingly, intentionally, willfully, maliciously and in conscious and reckless disregard of the plaintiff's rights, directed Richardson to pick up the packages and deliver them," the suit reads.

Snoop has 20 days to file a formal response to the suit, which accuses him of fraud and deceit, breach of contract, negligence and false imprisonment.

It's not the only legal issue the rapper has faced recently. Last month, he settled a suit brought against him by two unwitting Girls Gone Wild: Doggy Style participants.

In February, a judge tossed out a lawsuit brought by a man who claimed Snoop illegally sampled a message he left on the rapper's answering machine for the track "Pimp Slapp'd" off the 2002 album Paid Tha Cost to Be Da Bo$$.

In May, the rapper announced that he was divorcing his wife of seven years, Shante Broadus, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple have three children together.

Of late, Snoop's main focus has been on acting. In addition to his MTV comedy show, Doggy Fizzle Televizzle, he hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live earlier this year.

He has appeared in the feature films Baby Boy and Starsky & Hutch, among others. His most recent big-screen effort, Soul Plane, costarring Method Man, was razzed by critics.