Rapper Fat Joe Surrenders to Federal Authorities to Began Short Prison Stint

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.”