A third family of one of the victims killed during the Astroworld tragedy quietly settled their lawsuit against Live Nation, Travis Scott, and other Astroworld organizers six months ago, a source confirms to Rolling Stone.
The family of 14-year-old John Hilgert settled for an undisclosed sum, and court documents filed in Harris County and reviewed by Rolling Stone note that the family submitted a notice of non-suit with prejudice in February, withdrawing their case. Defendants listed in the filing included Scott, Live Nation, Scoremore, and several security companies, among others. Hilgert’s family joined the families of Axel Acosta and Brianna Rodriguez, who’ve also settled their Astroworld suits.
Ten people died at Astroworld, and hundreds of others were injured. The show’s organizers and Scott still face civil suits from thousands of attendees, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in potential damages.
Representatives for Hilgert’s family declined to comment. Reps for Live Nation and Scott didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Beyond the settlements, just over a month ago, a grand jury determined that no one involved with the festival — including Scott and several festival and security executives — would face criminal charges over the disaster. The Houston Police Department released its extensive, nearly-1,300 page investigation into the tragedy weeks later. The report detailed a chaotic scene in which fans, security personnel, and camera operators tried to relay the danger early in the show as the crowd constricted and festivalgoers were crushed — but the concert went on for an hour before finally concluding.
The report was released last Friday, the same day Scott’s latest album, Utopia, dropped. As TMZ reported, Scott’s attorney suggested the police released the report the same day as his album drop to impact sales, an assertion that seemed to irk Bob Hilliard, who represents the family of 9-year-old victim Ezra Blount.
“For an artist making his living with music, these are stunningly tone-deaf comments about this preventable tragedy that took so many lives and injured so many,” Hilliard told TMZ. A representative for Scott pushed back on Hilliards’s statements, telling the publication that “to use that report to try to blame Travis for the Astroworld tragedy doesn’t just defy logic, but can be seen as nothing but a cynical attempt to exploit the victims and gaslight the public.”
Philip Corboy, attorney for the families of Franco Patino and Jacob Jurinek — who both died at Astroworld — similarly criticized Scott’s lawyer’s statement. “My clients are concerned with their civil case, they’re not concerned one iota about Travis Scott and the problems he may have with an album release.”
Asked about the report, Corboy called the event “a horrible situation that occurred with a tragedy just waiting to happen. “There are so many different folks who were culpable, if they only stood up and did the right thing at the right time before the show started,” Corboy added. “It’s disappointing that everyone dropped the ball in this case.”