Actor/comedian Eddie Griffin has been sued over a $150,000 gift he presented to a charity called the Jamaica 360 program. The program sends 100 African-American college graduates on a “career-building vacation” to Jamaica. But Griffin’s check bounced.
Samir Sayegh, who went on the trip, now claims he was then induced into lending Griffin his credit card to cover a hotel bill while they were in Jamaica. According to the petition filed in court, Griffin took the card and secretly made a $150,000 charge to the main developer of Jamaica 360 to cover his check. Two weeks later, Samir got his American Express bill showing the charge.
Now American Express is suing Sayegh to collect the $150,000 and Sayegh is suing Griffin and the Jamaica 360 developers to get the money to pay AmEx.
All of this sounds so shady – I’m dying to hear the other side of this story…
ETA: Just read Perez’s report on this story. As usual, wrong. Here’s what Perez says:
Shady shady!
Comedian Eddie Griffin has been slammed with a lawsuit after failing to follow through on a donation pledge.
You can get sued for promising money to charity and not paying????
It’s more complicated than that!
In 2007, Griffin said he would give $150,000 to the Jamaica 360 initiative, which “sends African-American university graduates to the Caribbean to help further their careers.”
One of the two men who went on the trip provided by the organization is suing the actor, claiming that Griffin tricked him into giving him his credit card information to pay for a hotel room. Not only that but his check bounced!
The icing on the cake is that Griffin’s credit card company is also suing him for overdue payments.
The lesson here is: Don’t write checks you can’t cash!
(boldface is mine)
No legal expertise is needed here. Perez doesn’t seem to understand that Griffin didn’t get sued for the bounced check, for failing to follow through on a charity pledge or for overdue payments to a credit card company. Griffin got sued by Sayegh for allegedly putting a fraudulent $150k charge on Sayegh’s AmEx. And AmEx is suing Sayegh for not paying them on the account – thus the Sayegh vs. Griffin suit.
