Legal

Two months after Fat Joe sued his former hypeman Terrance “T.A.” Dixon for extortion over “false and vile accusations,” the one-time employee has filed his own lawsuit accusing the rapper of having sex with two underage girls.
In a complaint filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court, Dixon accuses Fat Joe (Joseph Cartagena) of a “deliberate and sustained campaign of exploitation,” leveling claims of sex trafficking, financial fraud, and racketeering. Most seriously, Dixon claims that he “personally witnessed defendant engage in sexual relations with children who were fifteen and sixteen years old.”

“Minor Doe 1 is a 16-year-old Dominican girl residing in New York,” Dixon writes in his lawsuit, obtained by Billboard. “In exchange for cash, clothing, and payment of her cell phone bill, defendant would get oral sex and other sexual acts performed on him by Minor Doe 1.”

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Those explosive allegations come two months after Fat Joe sued Dixon and his attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, over claims that they were extorting him by making “wholly fabricated, grotesque, and scandalous allegations,” including “unspeakable acts such as pedophilia.”

In a statement responding to the new case, Fat Joe’s lawyer Joe Tacopina called them a “blatant act of retaliation” and a “desperate attempt to deflect attention from the civil suit we filed first.”

“Law enforcement is aware of the extortionate demand at the heart of this scheme,” Tacopina says. “The allegations against Mr. Cartagena are complete fabrications — lies intended to damage his reputation and force a settlement through public pressure. Mr. Cartagena will not be intimidated. We have taken legal action to expose this fraudulent campaign and hold everyone involved accountable.”

Asked by Billboard about Tacopina’s statement regarding law enforcement, Blackburn repeatedly referred to his opposing counsel by the name Joe Taco Bell: “We offered Joe Taco Bell an opportunity for his client and me to meet at the [U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York] to file our respective criminal complaints and he tucked his tail between his legs and never responded. We met with law enforcement. Let’s see where this goes.”

In his Thursday complaint, Dixon says he dedicated his “talent, labor, and loyalty” to Fat Joe for 16 years, serving not just as a hype man but also a “lyricist, background vocalist, security team member, and creative collaborator.” But he says the star manipulated and abused him in myriad ways, ranging from underpayment to threatening his life.

“Defendants systematically engaged in coercive labor exploitation, financial fraud, sexual manipulation, violent intimidation, and psychological coercion against plaintiff Dixon, all intended to enrich defendant Cartagena and his associates while deliberately suppressing, silencing, and erasing plaintiff’s substantial creative, artistic, and commercial contributions, which were foundational to defendant Cartagena’s professional success and personal brand,” Blackburn writes on Dixon’s behalf.

That’s a very different story from the one that Fat Joe himself told first in April, when he sued Dixon and Blackburn for defamation over “a predatory plot, built entirely on lies, to destroy Cartagena’s reputation and business for profit.”

In that case, the star says he “compensated Dixon handsomely” and the hype man “never complained or expressed any dissatisfaction.” But he says the ex-staffer recently started airing false grievances about his pay and other issues, and has published “shocking falsehoods” to social media while making “outrageous financial demands.”

The early lawsuit also names Dixon’s lawyers as a defendant, claiming Blackburn threatened to file baseless legal action. Citing a recent ruling by a New York federal judge that sharply criticized Blackburn’s litigation tactics, the suit calls his behavior “shakedown tactics masquerading as lawyering.”

“Dixon’s and Blackburn’s conduct is … a cold-blooded attempt to extort exorbitant sums from Cartagena by leveraging the specter of public disgrace and professional ruin,” Tacopina wrote in April. “His defamatory statements accusing Cartagena of heinous crimes are devoid of any factual foundation, relying instead on the power of shock, scandal and Cartagena’s high-profile status to maximize leverage.”

The allegations about Fat Joe in the newer case are certainly shocking and scandalous. The complaint is 157 pages – far longer than the typical pleadings in such a case – and comes with an unusual bright red “trigger warning” at the top. It is also replete with photos of the alleged teenage victims, and claims that Dixon faced “credible threats” to his life, including “attempts to lure him into a violent ambush.”

The lawsuit also includes claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – the federal “RICO” statute often used in criminal cases against mobsters and drug cartels. Those sprawling claims allege that Fat Joe and his associates operated an illicit enterprise, and also names a number of outside groups as defendants, including Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.

Blackburn included similar civil RICO claims in a sexual assault case he filed last year against Sean “Diddy” Combs on behalf of producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones. While a judge has allowed the case to move forward, he dismissed the racketeering claims in March.