Criminal Justice
Lawyer accused of hitting rapper Fat Joe’s process server with his car
Rapper Fat Joe attends an NBA basketball game between the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics at Madison Square Garden on May 16 in New York City. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
A lawyer was arrested on an assault charge Wednesday for allegedly hitting a process server with his vehicle May 12 while trying to evade service of legal documents, according to published reports.
The lawyer, Tyrone Blackburn, was allegedly trying to avoid service of a lawsuit filed by rapper Joseph “Fat Joe” Cartagena that accuses the attorney and his client, former Fat Joe hype man Terrance Dixon, of extortion, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Blackburn allegedly put his car in reverse and hit the 66-year-old process server in the leg when he backed up, TMZ reports. The injury was minor.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office in New York charged Blackburn with assault, harassment, reckless driving and criminal possession of a weapon, Billboard reports.
The suit being served was related to two demand letters sent to Fat Joe, the rapper’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told NBC News. The first claimed that Dixon was due money for allegedly serving as a ghostwriter and a vocalist on several Fat Joe songs. The second threatened a suit that also included claims of statutory rape, sex trafficking and fraud, according to a June 25 press release by Fat Joe’s legal team.
Tacopina said the demand letter claims are “false and outrageous” and made “with utter disregard for truth or decency.”
Blackburn and Dixon filed a $20 million RICO suit against Fat Joe on the same day that the police issued a warrant for Blackburn’s arrest, Tacopina told NBC News. The suit contained a “trigger warning” at the top warning about depictions of alleged sex trafficking and assault, USA Today reports.
Fat Joe’s legal team said in a June 19 press release Blackburn and Dixon’s “retaliatory” suit is “a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the civil suit we filed first, which exposed their coordinated scheme to extort” the rapper. The suit allegations “are complete fabrications,” the statement said.
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