A U.S. federal appeals judge threw out a class-action lawsuit against Atlanta rap star, actor and entrepreneur Clifford “T.I.” Harris Jr. and his business partner Ryan Felton over alleged cryptocurrency fraud because the filing exceeded the statute of limitations.
The judge, William Pryror, who sprinkled several T.I. song titles into the ruling, said the plaintiff Kenneth Fedance filed the lawsuit a year after a one-year statute of limitations had already run out. A district court had previously made the same ruling.
Fedance, who purchased $3,000 of the FLiKIO tokens on August 23, 2017, filed his class-action lawsuit on May 10, 2019. He claimed Felton and T.I. sold unregistered securities in violation of the law and “fraudulently concealed the true nature of FLiK [tokens.]” The tokens are now worthless.
He said he wasn’t aware that FLiK tokens were securities subject to regulation until April 25, 2019, when the district court issued a ruling on a similar case.
The ruling summarized the company’s history: in mid-2017, Felton created FLiKIO, which raised money via cryptocurrency for “unique and creative entertainment projects.” On social media, he announced T.I. as the co-owner and T.I. himself tweeted about it. On August 23, 2017, the company made an initial coin offering of FLiK tokens.
On October 17, 2017, the tokens reached a peak price of 35 cents each on the cryptocurrency exchange market. But by the end of the year, after a “massive dump” of tokens, they began to lose value. FLiK stopped posting on social media and Felton largely ignored messages from token purchasers, the initial lawsuit alleged. By the middle of the year, the company was supposedly sold and the tokens were worth less than a penny.
T.I. has other more pressing legal matters at hand.
More than 30 women and one man have claimed that they were held against their volition with allegations of drugging, rape and assault by T.I and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris. Earlier this year, their VH1 reality show was suspended from production after the allegations began coming out.
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