“All of those rainyyy daaays, spend ya lifetime tryin’ to wash awaaaaay” Ja Rule agreed to pay over $1.1 million in tax debts and IRS penalties after the rapper pleaded guilty to tax evasion Tuesday. Ja—whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins—pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to three counts of failing to file a tax return, from 2004 through 2008, despite earning income from touring and royalties from his albums. U.S. federal judge Patty Shwartz set Ja Rule’s bail at $500,000 and permitted the Grammy nominated rapper’s release pending sentencing scheduled for June 13. Each count of tax evasion carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison. Early June will be a busy time period for Atkins as he was already scheduled to begin a two-year sentence for gun possession in relation to a 2007 arrest on June 8. Between the previous weapon charges and the tax penalties, Ja Rule faces a possible five years in prison. “Each of us must pay our fair share to keep this country going,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. Ja is reportedly working on a sequel to his triple-platinum album Pain Is Love in the remaining months before his prison term begins. Man, this guy can’t win for losing. When will these niccas learn??? You can cheat on your wife, you can cheat spades, but you can’t cheat Uncle Sam! Source
Now, this here is just embarrassing. City councilman Ruben Wills boasts an impressive do-gooder resume: founding a basketball league for neighborhood youth, running a nonprofit group to help single mothers. What he doesn’t mention is that he has two outstanding arrest warrants for pending criminal cases, a Daily News investigation has found. Or that he’s a deadbeat dad who faces a civil warrant for nonpayment of child support. State tax officials said as of Feb.7, he owed $27,493. Saturday, Wills admitted he was aware of the two outstanding criminal bench warrants on cases in Manhattan and Long Island that date back several years, and apologized for not addressing them before being elected to serve his district. “There is no excuse,” he wrote in an email response to the News. “While these events are more than 10 years old, I take full responsibility and I have taken steps to remedy the situation.” Last fall, Wills, 39, beat out a crowded field to win the office held by the late Thomas White, which represents a large working-class swath of Jamaica, Queens. On his Council website biography, he says he became an “entrepreneur” at 21, starting “a home contracting business which became a center of opportunity for young adults, the formerly incarcerated, and other at-risk residents of the community to acquire the job skills necessary to escape the vicious cycle of poverty and prison.” Wills’ home contracting work appears to be where he ran into trouble with the law, a review of court and other records found. In both cases, law enforcement officials said, Wills could turn himself in and resolve his pending charges. They also point out none of the charges is a felony. It’s also remarkable that the existence of the arrest warrants has never been discovered before, given that Wills used to work for the state Senate and was the subject of a recent glowing profile in The New York Times. Yesterday, Wills declined to discuss details of the arrests, instead issuing a statement through his campaign spokeswoman, Lupe Todd. “These misdemeanor cases stem from business disputes years ago and I am regretful that I did not properly address them when they occurred. This was truly an oversight as it was my belief that these matters had been finalized. Nevertheless this was poor judgment on my part in failing to follow up on the full disposition of these matters.” Regarding the child support he owes, Todd said the civil warrant regarding the $27,000 refers to back payments Wills is contesting in court. She said Wills has been making regular payments starting with the date paternity was established. Wills “pays the monthly requirement of approximately $346 plus an additional $250 which goes against the arrears which are currently in litigation,” she said. SMH. Source
Damn Shaffer, pay your peoples!! R&B singer Ne-Yo is being sued by his former personal manager – for the second time in five years – for allegedly stiffing him out of royalty payments. In court papers, exclusively obtained by RadarOnline.com, Munir Mahmud is suing for breach of settlement agreement and accounting, and demanding a trial by jury. “This is a civil action for breach of settlement agreement which resolved prior action,” Mahmud’s attorney states in the lawsuit documents. “This is the second time Plaintiff has been forced to file suit against Defendants for failing to pay monies expressly due to Plaintiff.” Mahmud says he previously filed a lawsuit against Ne-Yo, known as Shaffer Smith, but they came to an out of court settlement in 2006, and that lawsuit was ultimately dismissed. But, Mahmud says terms of that settlement have not been met: “in violation of the terms of the settlement agreement, despite repeated inquiries from Plaintiff, Defendants failed to submit to royalty settlements to Plaintiff identifying the amount of royalties paid to Smith in connection with the publishing and performance income, as required.” The suit is seeking a court order for “specific performance in the form of an order requiring Defendants to allow Plaintiff to audit and inspect their books…for the purposes of determining and verifying precision the amounts due and payable to Plaintiff.” Mahmud is also seeking compensatory damages and attorneys fees among other things. Via Radaronline
Child support is, and probably always will be, a hot topic in the black community. In these times of economic hardship people are having a hard enough time supporting themselves much less a child or children, but is the economy an excuse for being light on the payments? Total funds collected for U.S. child-support programs failed to increase during fiscal year 2009 for the first time since Congress created an enforcement arm for such collections in 1975, according to a study released this week by the Government Accountability Office. Overall collections declined by 2.1 percent from the previous fiscal year, including the first-ever drop in collections automatically withheld from wages, long the primary source of child-support payments. The enforcement program, administered at the state level and overseen by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, collected about $26 billion in child support payments during fiscal 2009 on behalf of some 17 million children, almost one-quarter of the nation’s kids. The average amount of child support collected per case dropped 3 percent to $1,670, the first decline since 1994. The amount of child-support funding collected from unemployment checks, however, nearly tripled during fiscal 2009. It’s a measure of the depths of the recession, but also of how much deeper it could have been, analysts say, without government efforts to mitigate the economic crisis. “I think it’s clear that the decline in collections isn’t due to a failing on the part of child-support enforcement administrators, but due to the economy,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, an advocacy group for lower-income Americans. “It would have been a bigger drop without the extended unemployment insurance benefits, which helped many noncustodial parents meet their obligations.” Has the economy affected you or your child’s parents’ ability to make sufficient payments? Source
Dear Janky Promoters, This isn’t a club night that’s being hosted by some C-list rapper, this is PRINCE cotdammit! Brutal weather in Dallas battered the Super Bowl festivities, but the biggest fiasco was the Prince concert scheduled for last night and canceled at the last minute. The superstar was due to perform at the Hotel Intercontinental along with Erykah Badu and others, with tickets selling for $1,500 each. But organizers called it off just an hour before it was to start, climaxing a flurry of conflicting statements about the show being canceled, resurrected and canceled again. “We are extremely disappointed that the organizers, the Meridian Entertainment Group and the River Alexander Group . . . were unable to bring Prince and his band to Dallas on Feb. 4,” said Prince’s manager, Kiran Sharma, in a statement last night. “Our understanding is that they lost their investors and were not able to adequately fund and produce the event. Prince was looking forward to performing in support of the Goss-Michael Foundation.” According to sources, the problem started when the River group didn’t cover Prince or his band’s travel costs or the rental of concert equipment. “They kept saying they’d cover the costs after they had the money from ticket sales, but they never could come up with the cash,” said one source. The foundation, which benefits art education, put out a press release yesterday afternoon saying the concert was canceled, and blamed River Alexander Group for being “unable to fund and produce the evening.” A few minutes later, the charity reversed itself, saying, “Circumstances have changed and the event featuring Prince WILL take place . . . Prince has arrived in Dallas and will perform this evening.” But at 6:30 last night, a fed-up Prince personally canceled. Get your sh*t together people, show the man some respect and have your business in order when you’re dealing with artists of this caliber. Source
Clearly Nas’s accountants are about as bad as the divorce attorney who worked out his settlement with greedy a** Kelis. Rapper Nas, who has a home in the Eagle’s Landing subdivision south of Atlanta, owes more than $6 million in back taxes, according to the Detroit News’ Tax Watchdog blog, where metro reporter Robert Snell scours public records and reports details on famous people with big tax bills. Nas has had tax troubles for some time, with the IRS filing liens in 2009, 2010 and most recently, on Jan. 10. The address on the oldest lien was the property in Eagle’s Landing. Nas also owns property in New York. The managers of his Queens condo building filed a lien last fall and said he had not paid the $420 monthly assessment since January 2010, according to Tax Watchdog. Smarten up, Nas. Source
Earlier this month, one of the employees at Lil’ Kim ‘s North Carolina business venture, Salon Se Swa, sent out an open layer accusing Kim’s cousin Katrise of being a shady boss. Late last week, Katrise’s shadiness apparently came home to roost. Lil’ Kim’s cousin Katrise Jones, who the rapper recently went into business with, was arrested last week on four felony charges of false pretense. She was also arrested for failing to return “hired property” worth over $4000. The two ladies opened a chain of Se Swa hair salons in Charlotte, NC. On January 14, 37-year-old Katrise was arrested at the salon located in Carolina Place Mall, in front of her stylist employees. Before this incident, a disgruntled employee went public with a letter detailing Katrise’s shady practices: “First of all, Katrise does NOT pay her employees and she is in so much debt that she hasn’t even paid her rent at the salon or her house. Which I hear she moved out in the middle of the night owing the landlord over $15,000. Poor Lil Kim trusted Katrise as so many others and Lil Kim needs to run the other way. I met Lil Kim and she is an innocent person in this mess that Katrise made. Katrise is a fraud and owes over $60,000 to people including employees, rents on her “shops”, her fabulous Range Rover. Here is a link to prove what I am saying. Inmate search on Katrise Jones. She has written over $15, 000 in fraudulant checks. She is what we call a HDM-a Hot Damn Mess!” SMH. People like this broad are the reason so many celebs are reluctant about putting they’re people on when they become successful. Source
Dammit man, we’re tired of seeing these ballin’-a** celebrities not paying their taxes… Within the span of three months (January-March, 2010), Anthony was hit with back bills of $1.8 and $1.6 million for unpaid taxes on his Long Island estate. Radar was unable to learn if they had been paid back, as both Anthony and his manager refused to respond to questions. Of course, it wasn’t a one-time mistake for Anthony; in 2007, he was hit with $2.5 million in back tax bills, a culmination of not paying up for four years. Why they allegedly sought to skip out on taxes is unclear; according to a 2008 People article, Lopez takes in around $20 million a year (with fashion companies estimated to be worth $225 as of 2008) and Anthony pulls in $11 million. The couple are also now investors in the NFL’s Miami Dolphins. Bruh…your old lady is CAKING! All you gotta do is hit that real good one night and ask her to cut that lil check. What’s 3.4 milli to ya’ll?? Didn’t she just get like 12 milli for doing American Idol?? Handle ya business man…SMH Source
