earsucker

Last year, Lil’ Kim had her Bentley repossessed. Unknown to the public at the time, was that the car she was driving actually belonged to music producer Scott Storch.

Storch’s lease on the vehicle was up in 2007, yet he kept the car from the leasing company. Instead of turning it in, he gave it to Lil’ Kim to drive. Storch was subsequently arrested and charged with grand theft auto for not returning the car, and the repossession company traced it back to Kim.

They took the car back from Kim’s residence in New Jersey, last May, causing a little bit of a fuss.

At that time, Kim’s publicist denied her ownership of the vehicle.

Her publicist argued the car didn’t really belong to the rapper anyway. “The car was a gift, given four years ago,” Tracy Nguyen said.

Storch is due to appear in court on May 29th, with Kim expected as a witness in the case.

I’ve had some experience with putting vehicles out for repossession and I wasn’t aware that it was legal to make the situation public. According to the Privacy Act, bank personnel and repossession companies are prohibited from releasing information like this to the public or any unauthorized third parties.

In addition to that, the leasing and/or repossession service may be liable due to the public humiliation this may have caused. But one could argue that Kim doesn’t have a right to privacy because it wasn’t her lease.

I’ll be interested to see how this one plays out.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

Image Credit: Bauer-Griffin