Bronx native Rapper Fat Joe whose real name is Joseph Cartagena has turned himself in to Miami federal prison officials to begin serving his 4-month sentence for tax evasion. Based on a plea arrangement, the rapper will only have to pay back to the government $15,000 fine plus one-year supervised release.
He initially was facing over 2 years in jail and 1 million dollar fine. In an interview after his sentence, he stated on the Breakfast Club:
“Well, what happened was I always had the same accountant for years and his son was in a car accident — so he retired and they introduced me to a new accountant so he took over my stuff so I got onto my ‘rapper’ where I have the guy paying all my bills and all that, so I’m wiring him money to pay my bills, my taxes — months and months of not paying [off my taxes], he paid it all off and I already knew this was some Ponzi scheme type dude. … So next day I went and got [a different] accountant and we tried to fix what was going on. … They feel like you, as the leader of your household, you supposed to be over everything that’s going on. You still get the blame even though it’s the accountant’s fault. … I paid them all the money back and I figured if you pay them all your money back — I ended up spending a million two hundred thousand and you know, I’m not Jay Z or none of that. Penalties is on top of that.”
