Stevie J is in major trouble, and we’re not even talking about his alleged assault on Erica Mena at the Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta reunion.
He has lost his appeal over $ 1.3 million in child support that he owes.
Is he going to end up behind bars?
We know that hip hop artists sometimes earn increased social credibility (“street cred”) from imprisonment, but heading to jail for being a deadbeat dad … probably doesn’t qualify.
Stevie J was “found guilty of knowingly withholding child support payments for his son and daughter over 18 years.”
That could cost him — seven figures, to be exact.
And Bossip reports that he has lost his latest appeal.
The appeal itself was an oddity, causing his first lawyer to quit working the case, citing that he had essentially no chance of winning and that it was a fool’s errand to try.
Stevie J persisted, believing that the ruling was “unfair,” even though he agreed to the payment in February of 2017.
Here’s where it gets weirder.
Stevie J opted to represent himself in his appeal.
If you genuinely cannot afford an attorney to handle your appeal, that’s fine. Otherwise, try to avoid representing yourself in court over anything more significant than a parking ticket.
And it turns out that the Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta star didn’t exactly miss his calling.
According to court documents, he “let deadline after deadline pass on the case without any action.”
Which is why the judge dismissed this appeal.
But will Stevie J go to jail after being found guilty of knowingly not paying child support to the tune of $ 1.3 million?
It doesn’t look like it.
Reports say that he avoided prison when he agreed to make the payments — though, at the time, the U.S. attorney was seeking to have him put behind bars for six months.
And perhaps this was why he gave up on his appeal.
If he was already going to pay up and if he wasn’t going to go to prison, why bother?
It would have been nice if he had elected to not waste the court’s time and notify them that he was withdrawing his appeal, though.
It is a strange and confusing case.
The moral, we suppose, is to just pay your child support. The guy’s net worth is estimated to be around $ 5 million. Don’t be a deadbeat.
On a more serious note, however, is what Stevie J allegedly did to Erica Mena at the reunion.
It began with a verbal altercation, which is the bread and butter of reality television and usually no big deal.
But things escalated when Stevie J’s criticisms of Erica turned into insults of her 11-year-old son.
Specifically, he used an anti-gay slur, calling the child a “f–got.”
Unacceptable under any circumstances, and not the first time that he has been accused of homophobia.
Some reports say that Erica responded by slapping Stevie J.
But it sounds like what happened next was much more serious — with Stevie J allegedly jumping on top of her and attacking her.
Reports say that Stevie J was pulled off of Erica by security and expelled from the building.
Many fans expect that he will be fired for this shocking display of alleged violence and homophobia.
Erica posted to Instagram but quickly deleted a video in which she referred to him as a “b–ch” who “likes to fight girls.”
It seemed that she was still feeling understandably heated from their alleged confrontation, but she may have been instructed to delete it or simply thought better of it.
Many fans hope that Erica pursues legal action against him, even if he is fired from the show.
