Kid Rock And Company Face Allegations Of RICO Act Violations

Kid Rock has been called a number of names over the years: rap-rocker, redneck, Pamela Anderson's beau, Scott Stapp sex tape co-star, Sheryl Crow's boyfriend and photographer foe, to name a few. Now he can add alleged extortionist to the list.

Rock and his lawyers have been accused of violating the U.S. Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a set of laws used to prosecute organized crime cases - and what finally brought down notorious gangster Al Capone in 1931. Former Rock business associates Alvin Williams and Earl Blunt of EB-Bran Productions filed a lawsuit on Friday after years of fighting the musician over copyright and trademark claims.

EB-Bran lawyer Francois Nabwangu claims that Rock's team of lawyers, record labels and others have conspired to steal the disputed copyright through money laundering, racketeering, perjury, tampering with a witness, retaliating against a witness, threatening an officer of the court and extortion.

"My case deals with extortion, mainly," Nabwangu told MTV News. "They tried to use the court proceedings to extort copyright. And you can't threaten somebody to give up their intellectual property."

The original copyright-infringement suit was dismissed, but is being appealed. During that process, Rock's people sought sanctions against EB-Bran that Nabwangu said were used to try to force them to give up their claim. He used phone calls made by Rock's lawyers in 2003 and a letter written this past January, in which Rock attorney William Horton offered to drop the motion in exchange for the transfer of copyrights and other interests, as examples.

The Rock camp denies the allegations and calls the suit a ploy to gain leverage in the sanctions hearing that's scheduled for Wednesday. Rock's lawyer, Michael Novak, said the sanctions add up to $40,000 U.S., not the millions asked for in EB-Bran's suit, and that there was no malicious intent in the offer to exchange the sanctions for copyright.

"To call a settlement discussion 'extortion' is a mind-boggling stretch," said Novak. "They're trying to claim a conspiracy, and that's totally silly and utterly meritless.

"It overstates the case. It's reckless and it's just wrong. I don't think the court will be too amused by the whole thing."

No hearing date has yet been set for the extortion suit.