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JAY-Z is "entitled" to receive nearly $120,000 after a judge ruled in his favor following the dismissal of the years-long paternity case against him.
In a ruling that was issued on Tuesday, January 13, Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett decreed that Hov, born Shawn Carter, is "entitled to recover" $119,235.45 in attorney’s fees and other relevant costs from the plaintiff, Lillie Coley. Coley is the "godmother and legal guardian" of Rymir Satterthwaite, who claimed JAY-Z is his biological father. Satterhwaite alleged the veteran rapper impregnated his late mother, Wanda Satterthwaite, in the mid-1990s. Hov consistently denied the allegations.
Judge Garnett previously dismissed Coley's paternity lawsuit with prejudice in November. It was dropped following a 15-year legal battle that Ms. Satterthwaite launched in a New Jersey courtroom over child support in 2010. Coley took over for Satterthwaite after she became terminally ill. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2012 after a judge determined it was filed in the wrong state. Coley and Rymir refiled in 2014 but the case became public in 2015 after they claimed Hov lied in order to get out of taking a DNA test.
Following Ms. Satterthwaite's death in 2016, Coley and Rymir continued their legal battle against JAY-Z. In 2023, Rymir Satterthwaite filed his own federal paternity lawsuit against the father of three. In it, Satterthwaite alleged JAY-Z suppressed evidence, stole records, and "negligently" concealed and misrepresented "material facts concerning his minimum contacts with the State of New Jersey."
"The fabricated allegations and claims have been addressed—and rejected—in multiple other courts," JAY-Z's attorneys wrote last year. They also argued the lawsuit was part of Sattherthwaite's "decades-long harassment" against him.