SHORT CHANGE: Ryan Leslie (left) and Armin Augstein at Manhattan federal court yesterday. Augstein is suing for the promised $1 million reward for the return of Leslie’s laptop. (
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He’s sure singing a different tune now.
Wealthy musician and producer Ryan Leslie — who offered $1 million for the return of a stolen laptop — readily admitted in Manhattan court yesterday that he reneged on the deal.
But he insisted that was because the things he really wanted returned were the unreleased tunes he’d written and stored on the computer’s external hard drive. And he said he was never able to access them after he got the gear back.
“The $1 million reward was for the return of the intellectual property,” Leslie insisted from the witness stand in Manhattan federal court.
The multitalented Harvard grad — who croons R&B, raps and has produced songs for Britney Spears and Mary J. Blige — is being sued by German auto-repair shop owner Armin Augstein, who claimed the reward after finding Leslie’s computer inside a black backpack while walking his dog outside Cologne.
Leslie, 34, had posted YouTube videos and tweets pleading for the return of his 13-inch MacBook Pro after it disappeared from the rear of a Mercedes-Benz he was using during a 2010 European tour stop.
He got the laptop back several weeks later in Paris, after Augstein turned the bag over to German cops.
Leslie told jurors that the laptop held iTunes copies of his songs — but they were virtually worthless compared with the multitrack versions stored on the computer’s high-capacity Avastor hard drive. When he excitedly tried to access those files in his hotel room, Leslie said, he couldn’t do so.
Eight months later, he sent what he said was the hard drive back to the manufacturer and asked for a new one. The company sent a new drive, and wiped clean the one he’d returned.
“I have come to terms that I [am] never going to see my album again,” said the Financial District resident, a onetime whiz kid who scored a perfect 1600 on his SATs and entered Harvard at age 15.
He described himself as “an ethical person” who “didn’t want to stiff anyone,” adding that his then-manager refused to let him pay up even if he wanted to because there may have been “foul play involved.”
Leslie — who came to court in a dapper pin-stripe suit with a pink carnation in the lapel — named-dropped several hip-hop luminaries during his testimony.
He noted that he had once interned with Sean Combs, then known as Puff Daddy, and, “I only started using Avastor drives because I saw Kanye West using them.”
He also said that having his multitrack tunes was crucial because he was heading to a recording session with West and Jay-Z in Bath, England.
“What if Jay-Z liked it and said, ‘I like everything about it, but take out the drums?’ ” Leslie said.
“I was with my musical hero, and I couldn’t deliver that.”
On his way out of the courtroom, Leslie told his entourage, — including Tunisian girlfriend and model Kenza Fourati — “Tomorrow we’ll know whether I’ll be writing checks or buying Maseratis.”
His attentive girlfriend had brought him cookies and apple juice during a break in the proceeding.
After the hearing, Augstein, through an interpreter, said he was “offended” by Leslie’s implication he was involved in the theft.
“Germans are very solid, serious people and you don’t make allegations like that,” said the dad of two, who’s been married for more than 30 years.
“This is the sort of thing you sue someone for in Germany.”
Closing arguments are scheduled for today.