A grand jury is meeting in Houston on Thursday (June 29) to decide whether to bring criminal charges against Travis Scott and other organizers of the deadly Astroworld music festival, but the rapper’s lawyer tells Billboard that he believes no such charges are likely.
As first reported by Reuters and confirmed by Billboard, the grand jury will weigh whether investigators have uncovered enough evidence to support criminal charges against Scott or other Astroworld planners over the November 2021 crowd crush disaster, which left 10 dead and hundreds physically injured.
In a statement to Billboard, Scott’s lawyer, Kent Schaffer, said he and his team were “confident that the grand jury will clear Travis of any wrongdoing” after seeing the evidence: “We’ve cooperated with the police department since the beginning and at no time have they indicated that there is any evidence of a crime.”
It’s unclear who else might be facing potential charges, what exactly those charges would look like, or when the grand jury might reach a decision. The Houston District Attorney’s Office did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday. A spokesperson for Live Nation, the promoter of the Astroworld festival, also did return a request for comment.
Any criminal charges will add a new dimension to the complex legal fallout from the crowd crush at Astroworld, which was one of the deadliest concert disasters in recent history.
Thousands of alleged victims have filed more than 400 civil lawsuits against Scott, Live Nation and other organizers, claiming they were legally negligent in how they planned and conducted the event, including by failing to provide adequate security and emergency support. With the many cases now combined into a single large action, the alleged victims are seeking billions in damages.
The two sides are currently in the midst of what is known as discovery, the lengthy legal process in which each side hands over evidence to their opponents and takes depositions of key figures. A trial or multiple trials will eventually be held to decide the case, but such litigation often ends in large settlements.
Despite the high-profile nature of the disaster, relatively little is known about the resulting lawsuit. That’s largely because the judge overseeing it has issued a strict gag order that prohibits attorneys and others from speaking about the case. Earlier this month, a Texas appeals court upheld that gag order, rejecting free speech arguments from news outlets.
