However, this is real life, and it's just the latest in the legal saga of Fat Joe. Instead, handcuffs were the place of stand for the lawyer who is currently suing the rapper on Wednesday morning, June 25, 2025. His charge is Second-degree assault after purportedly slamming into a process server with his car in what seemed to be an effort to avoid being served.
Such legalese is par for the course in the long-standing battle that pits Joseph "Fat Joe" Cartagena against Blackburn, attorney to Terrance Dixon, Fat Joe's ex-hype man. The beef began earlier this year after Blackburn and another artist, Dixon, accused Joe of having an uncredited ghostwriter and singer on some of his songs. They wanted a lot of money for it. When they didn't receive a response, they wrote a second letter increasing the stakes, threatening to unleash a legal Molotov cocktail on Cartagena: allegations of statutory rape, indentured servitude, and even sex trafficking.
Fat Joe and his legal pitbull, attorney Joe Tacopina, of course, weren't having any of it. They fired back in April with a lawsuit of their own, alleging extortion, defamation, and emotional distress on the part of Blackburn and Dixon. Tacopina says Blackburn's arrest is yet more evidence of what they've been saying all along.
"Tyrone Blackburn's arrest does not shock me, it's one more disgusting and manipulative example of his pattern of misconduct and malicious behavior that has finally come to light," Tacopina said. "Blackburn is a disgrace to the bar."
And it's not Blackburn's first legal brush with disapproval. Last year, fearing that splashy federal lawsuits full of spicy allegations did more for headlines than for justice, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of Manhattan referred him for discipline to the grievance committee on which Colonel Jessup served. A different judge, J. Paul Oetken, condemned his legal filings in March as "full of similar irrelevant insults, misstatements and exaggerations."
The fatality count stands at zero; Blackburn remains at large. And as for the supposed Wednesday car chase thing, the process server was attempting to, well, serve Blackburn with Fat Joe's legal papers when Blackburn reportedly got all caught up in the bootleg Fast & Furious. But his escape did not go as he'd hoped. The server was still able to do his job, and Blackburn landed in handcuffs.
Blackburn and Dixon recently struck back with a lawsuit of their own: a counterclaim against Cartagena for additional, unspecified damages. But if public opinion is any guide, this latest spin behind the wheel may have driven that strategy straight into the ditch.
So, what happens next? With lawsuits flying in both words and now a criminal charge in the mix, this courtroom showdown is shaping up to look like a heavyweight title fight with a thread of tabloid glamour.
0 Comments