He took a $1 million roll of the dice — and wound up rolling in Benjamins.
The German man who returned cheapskate rapper Ryan Leslie’s laptop said yesterday he knew there was a good chance the jury in his suit against the hip-hopper might rule against him — but settling the case was not an option.
“I understood the risk,” said Armin Augstein, 54. “One never knows how a matter will be decided by a jury, but I was prepared to take that risk.”
The gamble paid off.
The Manhattan federal jury on Wednesday awarded Augstein the $1 million reward Leslie had promised to whomever returned his laptop. But during the panel’s deliberations, victory for the German auto-shop owner did not seem so sure.
Steven Hirsch
Armin Augstein
At one point, the jurors asked the judge if they could give Augstein less than the promised amount.
“We feel the $1 million is too high,” the jurors said in a note to Judge Harold Baer Jr. The judge told them that they had to choose to give the million — or nothing.
That inspired Leslie’s camp to make a desperate 11th-hour settlement bid. Augstein’s lawyers flatly turned it down, trusting the panel would side with them.
“There had never been a negotiation. I wasn’t present and [my attorney] was not authorized to discuss anything other than my million-dollar claim,” Augstein said during a conference call from Germany with attorney Steven Thal translating.
Augstein found the computer in November 2010 while walking his dog outside Cologne, and turned it over to local police.
He had taken Leslie’s promise of $1 million in reward money for his missing MacBook Pro at face value and pursued it over two years.
“He never told me a ‘thank you’ or, ‘Super, you really found this for me and I’m happy.’ He could have said, ‘I will check on the facts and get back to you,’ but he didn’t do anything, so I decided to stay with [my claim],” said Augstein, adding he has no plans yet to spend his windfall.
Leslie — an acclaimed songwriter who tried to weasel out of his promise because he couldn’t retrieve some songs on the hard drive — will apparently keep fighting.
“Don’t believe everything you read in the f--kin news. Even though it’s very entertaining,” he tweeted yesterday along with a photo of the day’s Post.
His attorney David DeStefano added, “We have very serious grounds for appeal.”
chuck.bennett@nypost.com
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