1993.10.01 - The Orlando Sentinel - Untitled [Alan Niven's statement on the Adler lawsuit]

Transcript:
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Ex-Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler will receive $2.5 million from the group and its former and current managers under a settlement of a lawsuit that was scheduled to go to a jury last Friday.

Under the settlement, Adler will receive $2.3 million from the band; $50,000 from its manager, Doug Goldstein; and $150,000 from ex-manager Alan Niven.

Adler, 28, sued after he was kicked out of the band in 1989 because members claimed he had a heroin problem that was interfering with his performance. The monthlong trial in Los Angeles Superior Court included testimony from members of the group.

“I consider it insane that Steven Adler should have his junkiedom rewarded,” Niven said in a prepared statement. “There is something fundamentally wrong with a situation in which a junkie, expelled from a band before he can destroy both it and himself, hands over to lawyers the money he apparently retained from his days in G N’ R to sue the very people who saved his life and who attempted to prevent him from squandering those funds. That he can parlay that money into millions more through legal extortion is a travesty.

“I resent having to pay a single nickel in settlement.”