Fat Joe Accuses Attorney Tyrone Blackburn of Using Fake AI Citations in Court Filing

Fat Joe has accused Tyrone Blackburn of relying on bogus AI-generated legal citations in a motion to dismiss the rapper’s defamation lawsuit.

According to court documents obtained by Complex, Fat Joe’s legal team argued that Blackburn’s filing to toss the case is riddled with “misrepresentations and fabrications of legal authority clearly generated by AI.” The brief highlights “at least ten instances” where Blackburn allegedly cited “hallucinated” case law, which are references that either don’t exist or distort real rulings.

The Bronx rapper, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, sued his former hypeman, Terrance Dixon, along with Blackburn earlier this year. The lawsuit claims the two attempted to extort him by spreading false accusations of sexual misconduct and underage relationships in an effort to damage his reputation and pressure him into a multimillion-dollar payout.

According to the complaint, Dixon and Blackburn pushed fabricated social media posts accusing Fat Joe of pedophilia and orchestrating murder-for-hire plots. Blackburn moved to dismiss the case in August, but Fat Joe’s lawyers now say the filing is “fundamentally untrustworthy.”

“Blackburn’s egregious misconduct in drafting the Motion overshadows Defendants’ substantive arguments,” the filing states. It further accuses the lawyer of having “irresponsibly relied on artificial intelligence-generated content without manual verification.” Fat Joe’s attorneys also argue Blackburn’s history shows this isn’t an isolated mistake.

“It is time, once and for all, for Blackburn to be sanctioned for his flagrant disregard of his duties and responsibilities to the court in fabricating and intentionally misconstruing legal authority,” they wrote.

By submitting a motion filled with false citations, the filing claims that Blackburn is attempting to derail the case and avoid accountability. Fat Joe’s team is asking the judge to deny the dismissal, impose sanctions, and allow the lawsuit to proceed. The judge presiding over Fat Joe’s case has not yet ruled on the motion to dismiss.

Blackburn has faced similar allegations before. Judges have reprimanded him in past cases for submitting documents “replete with inaccurate statements of law” and “wholly fabricated quotations from caselaw.” One Pennsylvania judge even found out that Blackburn was involved in “a conscious effort to deceive and mislead the Court.”

In a separate defamation case involving pastor T.D. Jakes, U.S. District Judge William Stickman ordered Blackburn to pay more than $76,000 in legal fees after filings were discovered to contain AI-generated citations and false claims. Stickman described the conduct as “clear ethical violations of the highest order.”