CMJ owner ordered by Judge to pay former employees over $500k

Adam Klein, the owner of the now defunct CMJ trade journal and CMJ music festival, has been ordered to pay more than half a million dollars to the ex-employees who collectively sued him in 2016 for unpaid wages, by U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest. Klein’s lawyer, Alex Granovsky, told Pitchfork in a statement:

We have default judgment against Abaculi Media Inc. for all four plaintiffs, and final judgment of damages against Adam Klein individually as to three of the plaintiffs. We intend to prevail at trial on behalf of our fourth plaintiff and enforce judgment against all defendants, including Mr. Klein individually.

There hasn’t been a CMJ Festival in NYC since 2015 (though they claimed it is coming back), and the trade magazine (which collected college radio station playlists into a weekly chart) ceased publication of its charts in 2017. CMJ’s website is currently down.