A Philadelphia judge who’s been targeted for months with harsh criticism for sentencing Meek Mill to prison on a probation violation has hired a lawyer who is threatening to sue for defamation.
Attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr. said Thursday that Judge Genece Brinkley hired him last week. He says Mill’s legal team has been making baseless claims to the media about the judge’s personal and professional conduct.
Attorney Joe Tacopina is representing Mill. He says the rapper’s legal team looks forward to fighting any lawsuit.
Philadelphia-born Mill was sentenced in November to two to four years in prison for violating probation on a roughly decade-old gun and drug case. Mill’s lawyers have unsuccessfully appealed the sentence multiple times and have called for Brinkley to recuse herself from the case.
The issue Brinkley has stemmed from accusations from Meek’s legal team claiming she wanted the “Wins and Losses” rapper to ditch long-time label Roc Nation and sign with manager Charlie Mack, who is her friend.
Transcripts obtained by TMZ Monday, Jan. 29, which Meek’s team claimed proved their point against Brinkley, show it was the probation officer who was gunning for Meek to take on Mack, whom the MC fired in 2011.
Yet according to Jordan W. Siev, Meek’s attorney, he says he has other transcripts proving Brinkley and the probation officer pressed for Mack’s rehiring, although he’s not sure why.
“What we see repeatedly is not just a request by the judge or the district attorney or the probation officer for Meek to replace his management,” he says on “The Angie Martinez Show” Tuesday, Jan. 30. “Perhaps that they felt his management wasn’t doing the right thing.”
He noted that Brinkley brought up Mack’s name “time and time again.”
“The other manager [Charlie Mack] we didn’t have no problems Siev reads of Brinkley’s remarks in beginning in December 2012.
The court along with an assistant district attorney repeatedly mention Mack throughout the case including in March 2013 and August 2014, noting one exception was made for Meek to be around known felons under Mack’s management.
“When Mr. Mack had him, there were no problems,” Siev reads of the court’s words in 2014.
Associated Press contributed to this story.
