Fat Joe’s former hypeman, Terrance Dixon, has filed an amended complaint that drops the allegations of RICO, statutory rape, and trafficking of minors from his lawsuit.
In legal documents reviewed by Complex, Dixon is still suing Fat Joe, real name Joseph Antonio Cartagena, but several major accusations against his former employer have been dropped from the civil lawsuit. Crucially, Dixon is no longer accusing Joe of the trafficking of minors, violating the RICO act, and statutory rape. He is, instead, asserting civil claims of violating the trafficking victims protection act, forced labor, unlawful wage theft, infringement of copyright ownership, and fraud.
In the complaint, Dixon accused Fat Joe and other corporate entities, including Roc Nation, of engaging in “coercive labor exploitation, financial fraud, copyright misappropriation, violent intimidation, and psychological coercion” from 2005 to 2020. Dixon has alleged he is owed at least $600,000 in unpaid wages during his time as Fat Joe’s hypeman.
The amended complaint arrives not long after Joe asked a judge to sanction Dixon and his attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, for alleged misconduct and repeated delays. Joe argued that Blackburn repeatedly avoided answering questions during his deposition, and “obstructed his deposition using false claims of cognitive impairment.”
In March last year, Dixon and his attorney sent Fat Joe a letter demanding payment for his alleged work as a “ghostwriter and uncredited vocalist” on some of his songs. Joe did not respond to the letter, and Dixon later threatened a lawsuit over unpaid wages, forced labor, and statutory rape. Joe denied the allegations in a statement shared by his attorney, Joe Tacopina, who called the allegations “false and outrageous.”
Fat Joe sued Dixon for extortion and defamation after he allegedly accused the rapper of being a pedophile on social media. In his defamation suit, Joe alleged that Dixon resorted to “countless posts on social media containing a torrent of wholly fabricated, grotesque, and scandalous allegations — accusing Cartagena of unspeakable acts such as pedophilia, statutory rape and sexual assault.”
In June 2025, Blackburn and Dixon filed a $20 million federal lawsuit against Fat Joe in the Southern District of New York, accusing the rapper of forcing Dixon to engage in sex acts, underpaying him, denying songwriting credits, and threatening him.
