Photo Credit: Jay-Z by Joella Marano / CC by 2.0
Jay-Z battles renewed paternity charges from an alleged “illegitimate son” amid sexual assault allegations.
A man who alleges Jay-Z is his father is calling for the music mogul to confirm his paternity in another legal battle amid allegations that the rapper sexually assaulted a teenage girl in 2000.
The 55-year-old musician, whose real name is Shawn Carter, was named last week in a civil lawsuit that alleges he raped a woman alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2000 when she was 13 years old.
Now he faces renewed allegations over the paternity of Rymir Satterthwaite, who has been fighting over a decade to prove the rapper is his biological father. The 31-year-old Satterthwaite claims Carter’s legal team “acted fraudulently” during previous attempts to get him to take a paternity test.
The new lawsuit, filed on November 25, lists Satterthwaite, his late mother Wanda, and his guardian Dr. Lillie Coley as plaintiffs against several New Jersey courts and judges, including the state’s Supreme Court, with allegations of violations of their constitutional rights.
The suit argues that from 2012 to 2023, their rights were violated through “fraudulent court actions, which included sealed records, wrongful sanctions, and obstruction of their legal proceedings.”
Wanda, who passed away in 2019, alleged she had sex with Carter in 1992 when she was 16, in a sworn affidavit. Satterthwaite was born in the summer of 1993. At the time, Wanda was involved in an on-again-off-again romance with her high school sweetheart, Robert Graves. In 2010, she requested a Pennsylvania court make both men take a paternity test to determine her son’s biological father. Graves agreed, and the results proved he was not the father.
That case began with a pre-trial in Camden County, New Jersey on August 13, 2012. Carter’s attorneys argued that Dr. Coley, who has been Satterthwaite’s legal guardian since 2011, had “no jurisdiction” over the case since it was first filed by Wanda in Pennsylvania, and should therefore be heard in the same state.
Ultimately, that case was dismissed outright because Satterthwaite was over 18 at the time of the pre-trial hearing, and according to Pennsylvania state law, paternity must be established before a child reaches adulthood. The court ruled the case should be tried in New Jersey, where the law states the age of “parentage” is 23.
But Carter’s legal team argued the rapper should be exempt from undergoing a paternity test in New Jersey, because he did not live or own any property in the state, despite public records linking him to multiple homes. His attorney in New Jersey, Lise Fisher, admitted she “misspoke” during the hearing when she said Carter did not own property in New Jersey.
New Jersey law states that an attorney commits fraud when knowingly making false statements. Satterthwaite claims Carter’s legal team acted fraudulently in order to prevent him from being court ordered to take a paternity test.
Both Satterthwaite and Coley believe Carter’s attorneys have fought to prevent him from having to submit a paternity test for one reason only: Wanda was underage when she became pregnant.
The new lawsuit came only days before Carter was connected to the scandal surrounding Sean “Diddy” Combs, in which both musicians are accused of raping a 13-year-old girl at a VMAs after party in 2000.
