Tony Brown, the co-founder of Maverick City Music, has hit the Grammy-winning worship collective with racketeering claims over a buyout agreement, which he says was the product of threats and coercion by the group’s CEO and the brother of ’90s hip-hop star MC Hammer.
The allegations come on the heels of a bombshell fraud lawsuit brought against Maverick City Music by former member Chandler Moore, who claims CEO Norman Gyamfi orchestrated secret deals and forged Moore’s signature to steal millions of dollars’ worth of publishing royalties.
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Brown and his ex-wife, Rebekah Aversano, have been pursuing their own lawsuit against the Atlanta-based group since 2024 over buyout payments. The duo is now adding new civil claims that accuse Maverick City of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act — an organized crime law typically deployed in gang prosecutions like the YSL case.
Brown and Aversano claim that Gyamfi coerced Brown into signing an unfavorable buyout deal in 2023 with the help of Louis Burrell, a music industry veteran and the brother of MC Hammer. According to court filings, Burrell threatened to launch a “character assassination” and “bury” Brown’s family in debt unless Gyamfi’s preferred terms were agreed to.
“Defendants participated in and conducted the enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity by committing at least two predicate acts chargeable under the laws of the State of Georgia, including but not limited to acts in the nature of theft by deception, extortion and related offenses,” writes Brown and Aversano’s attorney, Gary Freed, in a Friday (Oct. 17) amended complaint. “The predicate acts and related conduct were (and are) part of an ongoing scheme to obtain and maintain control over property, contractual rights, and money owed to plaintiffs.”
Freed is tying these civil RICO claims to the royalty fraud lawsuit filed by Moore on Oct. 1. As he writes in the amended complaint, “Upon information and belief, defendants’ pattern of racketeering activity also harmed Chandler Moore.”
An attorney for Gyamfi and Maverick City, Jordan Siev of the firm Reed Smith, says in a Monday (Oct. 20) statement to Billboard that Brown and Aversano’s entire lawsuit is “baseless.”
“If necessary, we will present facts that clearly will demonstrate Mr. Brown’s and his ex-wife claims are meritless and in fact arise from Mr. Brown’s own wrongful conduct,” adds Siev. “Their proposed amendment to add a RICO claim is the surest sign of desperation.”
Burrell did not return a request for comment.
Maverick City and Gyamfi have previously denied that Brown’s buyout agreement was the product of coercion. In a court filing in April, the group’s lawyers said Brown’s own lawyers negotiated the deal “on a level playing field” with Gyamfi.
“The alleged threats are not relevant because throughout the negotiation process, Mr. Brown was represented by competent counsel,” wrote attorney Mac Gibson at the time, adding that there’s no evidence Burrell actually worked for Maverick City.
Brown co-founded Maverick City in 2018 alongside Jonathan Jay. The Atlanta-based music collective has gone on to win five Grammy Awards and top the Billboard Christian and gospel charts with collaborations between singers like Moore, Naomi Raine and Brandon Lake.
Gyamfi joined Maverick City as a part-owner and executive around 2021 and helped grow Maverick City’s Christian music empire under the holding company Insignia Assets, including by establishing the label TRIBL Records. According to court filings, Brown decided in 2023 to liquidate his Insignia shares to fund his divorce settlement with Aversano. Gyamfi bought out Brown for an undisclosed amount and agreed to pay him in a series of installments that would be shared with Aversano.
But in July 2024, Brown and Aversano sued Gyamfi and Insignia, alleging these installment payments had never been completed. The lawsuit said $200,000 was still due, and that Gyamfi had justified the underpayment by citing sexual harassment claims made against Brown by a female former executive at TRIBL Records.
Brown denies engaging in sexual harassment, and he says Maverick City is just using the claims as a “pretext” to violate the buyout contract. The female former TRIBL executive has not brought any lawsuits herself or otherwise publicized sexual harassment claims against Brown or the company.
Maverick City has since undergone some major changes, with Moore and fellow flagship member Raine both announcing earlier this month that they were leaving the collective to focus on solo projects.
Moore accompanied his exit with legal claims over alleged royalty fraud, which Maverick City has denied as “wildly untrue.” Jay, the co-founder, wrote in a lengthy Instagram statement that Moore’s claims are merely “calculated attempts to strong-arm a way out of agreements Chandler made freely and later breached.”
“To be clear: the claims being made against me, against Norman and against our companies are categorically false,” wrote Jay. “Our business dealings with Chandler were forthright, generous and above reproach. We acted in good faith, gave more than what was required and consistently extended grace. Any allegations of misdeeds are simply not true, and we welcome a full and honest examination, because the truth will speak for itself.”
