January has come and gone, and Meek Mill’s team is still fighting against the Philadelphia judicial system for his freedom. Last year, Judge Genese Brinkley—who has been accused of trying to extort personal favors from the rapper and pettily lashing out when he refused—decided to revoke the rapper’s probation and give him jail time. The decision stirred many mixed reactions, with many critics voicing their beliefs that Brinkley’s sentence was too heavy-handed for Meek’s arguably minor offenses.
Meek’s team publicly called her out on her allegedly murky motives and Brinkley recently barked back, reportedly threatening to sue the rapper’s legal team if they kept trying to bring her private life into the spotlight. Brinkley’s new attorney, A. Charles Peruto Jr., delivered the warning.
“What you have is an organization – extremely wealthy – who wants to attack a sitting judge. … It’s ‘How much money can you throw at a case and make your allegations stick?’” Peruto told the Philadephia Inquirer. “Her reputation has been severely damaged within the last month. We absolutely believe she has an absolute solid [defamation] case.”
Meek Mill’s lawyer, Joe Tacopino, released a statement of his own in response:
“We look forward to a lawsuit from the judge and taking this to court where she will have to be deposed under oath and speak the truth. We are not shocked that Judge Brinkley has resorted to this tactic. She has filed 29 lawsuits, including lawsuits against the Hershey Estate and the Hershey Entertainment Resorts Company in Philadelphia Municipal Court, settled for $15,000 and claimed “trauma,” sleeplessness, “flashbacks,” and “nightmares” that she blamed on the hotel, where she had stayed for a 2012 judicial conference. Brinkley claimed that her emotional distress was triggered when she woke up in the middle of the night to find a housekeeper’s name badge in her bed. She also had sued The City of Philadelphia and tenants where she has tried to take advantage by using her title as a judge to intimidate them.
We won’t be intimidated, especially by a lawyer, who visited Meek Mill days after he was sentenced and also called his defense team to try to get hired and offer him his legal services on this matter. Additionally, he has changed his tune regarding his comments about paying $100,000 if the FBI concludes the judge did something wrong – his earlier comments to Law.com were that he would pay 5 years of his salary if the FBI ever investigated the judge. I guess he is withdrawing that bet now.”
We’ll have to see how this all plays out in the coming weeks.