A New Jersey activist claims the alleged illegitimate son of Jay-Z is still the rapper’s child despite his 10-year refusal to take a paternity test.
According to BlackNews.com, Essie Berry claims the billionaire, whose real name is Shawn Carter, is the biological father of 31-year-old Rymir Satterthwatie despite his refusal to take a DNA test under New Jersey state law as long as he is a resident of the state. Berry claims that Carter owns property in the state but his team claims that he does not.
Satterthwaite is the son of the late Wanda Satterthwaite, who claimed she and Carter slept together back in 1992 when she was 16 and in high school. She told the Daily Mail that she met the “Song Cry” artist through her friend, Kaleesha Allen, in Philadelphia, and they had sex at an apartment in Brooklyn, NY.
The late mother claimed that they used protection during the sexual encounter, but the condom “broke.” Wanda Satterthwaite died of heart failure in 2019, but Carter and his attorneys have denied her claims.
Prior to her death, Wanda also reportedly signed an affidavit back in Feb. 2015 that was also signed by Allen.
“I, Wanda Satterthwaite, write these allegations about my relationship with Shawn C. Carter. I met Shawn Corey Carter in fall 1992 and he identifies himself as ‘Rock’ through my friend Kaleesha Allen, who is eyewitness,” read the affidavit.
“I went by the name Carmel or Precious. Kaleesha rode in the front of the car with Shawn’s friend while Wanda aka Carmel/Precious rode in the back with Shawn. The driver drove what looked like an Eldorado car, which was gold/yellow. We were taken back to Shawn’s aunt’s apartment in Brooklyn Projects in New York.”
Wanda said that after partying, Allen went to one of the rooms with Carter’s friend, and she went to another with him where they had sex. She said the former Roc-A-Fella co-founder came back to see her again two weeks later to hang out, but she declined because her “mother would be upset.” Wanda said she didn’t know how to reach the then-22-year-old because she didn’t know his real name until she saw him a year later on television.
Rymir Satterthwaite filed a new motion with the New Jersey Supreme Court back in February asking the court to unseal documents dating back to 2012. The Supreme Court rejected it, stating that the motion did not have jurisdiction to re-open appeals court documents or the jurisdiction to unseal trial court records.
Rymir then filed a motion with the Appellate division, but it was denied on May 8. Undeterred, the 30-year-old plans to file another appeal with the District Court, claiming “fraud” and “collision.”
Rymir’s mother and her high school sweetheart, Robert Graves, were reportedly on-and-off-again when her son was conceived. Graves is listed on the birth certificate, however, he was later removed after a DNA test proved that he was not the child’s father. Wanda suspected Graves wasn’t the father years later when she noticed Rymir didn’t resemble him.
Rymir says his mother told him Carter was his dad when he was just 8. In 2010, Wanda’s heart weakened due to having Scarlet Fever as a child, and she decided to file paternity documents in Pennsylvania. Graves agreed to a paternity test and the court determined he was not the father. But Carter did not.
After a pre-trial in Camden County, New Jersey in 2012, Carter’s lawyers argued that the New Jersey court had “no jurisdiction” over the case, because Wanda had first filed in another state. Carter’s lawyers argued that Pennsylvania law states that paternity must be established before a child reaches adulthood and Rymir had already reached 18.
However, the court disagreed, stating that the paternity case should be decided under New Jersey state law, which defines the age of parentage as being 23 years old. Carter’s attorneys argued that the 53-year-old should be exempt from the paternity test because he did not live in the state nor did he own property in the state. However, he reportedly owns homes in Alpine and Newport, which his lawyers denied.
Yes that's his baby…conceived when he shot the Big Pimpin video. I'm a Jersey girl; that's been an open "secret" for decades
— 👑The QueenMaker👑 (@MsComeBackKid) November 18, 2023
The case was dismissed after Carter’s attorneys claimed he owned no real estate or properties in New Jersey. After Rymir’s attorneys appealed the decision and provided copies of deeds proving the rapper owned property in the state, Carter’s attorney Lise Fisher told the court that she misspoke. The case was dismissed regardless after Carter’s lawyer claimed that Rymir’s attorneys failed to prove that the “Shawn Corey Carter” listed on the deeds was Jay-Z and not another person with the same name.
Later in 2015, Rymir sued for civil damages and claimed that the “Run This Town” artist had obstructed his ability to get closure. He also filed a civil rights complaint in 2017 against Judge Glenn A. Grant, New Jersey’s Attorney General, the Governor of New Jersey, several New Jersey senators and the Judicial Conduct Board in New Jersey claiming that normal procedures for court services were not followed based on gender, class, and retaliation, but the claims were dismissed. He refiled five more times between 2018 and 2022, but they were all dismissed as well.
Rymir and his godmother, Dr. Lillie Coley, who was given custody of Rymir when his mother became ill, are now calling for a federal investigation into the matter. He alleges Carter’s attorneys defrauded the government by claiming he did not own property in the state and that the New Jersey court system committed fraud by protecting the music mogul.
“We are calling on President Joe Biden and the New Jersey Courts to make changes in our legal system to protect Black Americans’ rights,” said Dr. Coley.
Berry’s connection to Rymir and her involvement with the case is currently unknown. However, she and Coley want the federal government to investigate the New Jersey courts for a decade of Fraud, Fraud Upon Court, Collusion, Conspiracy, Concealment of Evidence, Discrimination, Retaliation, Denial of Due Process, and Sealing Records with Allegations of Fraud between 2012 to 2023.
