For years, Live Nation’s executives told anyone who would listen that they weren’t a monopoly, just a very large, very successful company with a lot of satisfied customers. On April 15, a federal jury in Manhattan saw through it.

With an encore sure to include appeals, calls to sell off Ticketmaster and more, Live Nation on Wednesday was deemed an illegal monopoly by a federal jury in New York City.

In a case brought to court by California and dozens of other states during a five-week trial, the Michael Rapino-run Live Nation wasn’t helped by the release of internal correspondence about taking “advantage” of consumers with high prices and “robbing them blind, baby.” The promoter and events giant claimed those statements were simply ill-considered remarks by individual staffers, but the stink was on both in and outside the Manhattan courtroom of Judge Arun Subramanian.