Two losses, $1.9M in hole, still defiant

Chasing her 10-month-old son around her Brainerd home was exactly the therapy Jammie Thomas-Rasset needed Friday. She was still reeling one day after a federal jury slapped her with $1.9 million in damages in a music file-sharing case that thrust the 32-year-old mother of four into the national spotlight.

"There are times I can't handle it and I break down," Thomas-Rasset said. "But no matter how bad you feel, you can just look into the face of a baby and they'll make you smile -- they're so innocent and sweet."

Still defiant despite the hefty damages and planning to appeal, Thomas-Rasset insists she, too, is innocent even though she has lost twice now to a coalition of record companies.

"They are the ones who basically tried to extort money out of me for something I didn't do," she said, although she concedes she can see how the jurors reached their decision.

"I will fully admit the evidence is stacked against me," she said. "To any layperson sitting out there, it was my user name and my computer."

But until the companies accused her of illegally downloading and distributing 1,700 songs, Thomas-Rasset said she never heard of the online file-sharing networks that lawyers say she used.

"I didn't share music on Kazaa, I didn't download songs on Kazaa and I never heard of Kazaa before this lawsuit," she said.

Thomas-Rasset owns more than 300 CDs and acknowledges she likes 60 of the artists whose music she is accused of illegally sharing, including Green Day and Linkin Park. She said she's never heard of others, including Morbid Angel and Covenant, that came up in court.

'My stubborn spirit'

She testified that a former boyfriend and her older children might have done the downloading. But while thousands of other alleged online music sharers settled out of court, Thomas-Rasset said "my stubborn spirit" and financial reality sent her up against music industry lawyers.

"I just don't have a couple grand to throw away and I didn't do this," said Thomas-Rasset, whose new lawyers are working for free after her previous lawyer quit because he wasn't getting paid.

Thomas-Rasset grew up in Sandstone, Minn., with five brothers and one sister. On her MySpace.com page, she describes her parents, Russell and Karen Thomas, as "beautiful, loving, caring, yet blindly stubborn." She laughed Friday and said, "That's probably where I get it from."

After she lost in 2007, a judge granted a retrial because of improper jury instructions. Thursday's verdict was eight-times worse than the original damages of $220,000. Earning about $50,000 a year as a tribal conservation worker, she has made it clear she has nowhere near the resources to pay $1.9 million.

As she left the federal courthouse in Minneapolis after the verdict, Thomas-Rasset said she wished the industry luck in ever claiming the money.

Kiwi Camara, one of Thomas-Rasset's attorneys, said his client planned to appeal the ruling, but the legal team would take a few days to settle on its legal arguments. The damage award will probably be part of it.

In the meantime, Thomas-Rasset will be back at work as a conservation coordinator with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, where she administers grants from the Environmental Protection Agency to redevelop contaminated property. EPA officials are scheduled to visit the area next week.

Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said Friday the verdict should remind those who share music illegally about the penalties in copyright law. "For the few existing cases, this verdict is a reminder of the clarity of the law," she said

Love on the Internet

When her legal quarrel began, Jammie Thomas was a single mother. She married Chad Rasset in February after meeting him, fittingly enough, on the Internet.

"I met him on an online dating website and I didn't think he was really my type," she said. "He had a rather unique piercing through the bridge of his nose."

So she sent him an e-mail, asking whether it hurt. One thing led to another. The newlyweds have different reactions to all the publicity swirling around the case.

"The notoriety kind of sucks, to be honest with you," she said. "My husband finds it amusing. I'll be out in public and someone will ask: 'Where do I recognize you from?' I'll be like, 'I don't know,' and he'll say, 'You probably saw her on TV.'''

Perhaps that is why she avoided TV cameras and left the courthouse through a skyway exit Thursday.

Not that she minds being a scapegoat. She thinks her case was a factor in the music industry's decision to halt mass litigation against individuals accused of sharing music.

"I take a little bit of pride in the fact that at least I threw a monkey wrench into their litigation campaign," Thomas-Rasset said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

alex.ebert@startribune.com • 612-673-4264 curt.brown@startribune.com • 612-673-4767