A little over four months after Fat Joe opened up his own sneaker store, UP NYC, the Bronx-born rapper is tied up in lawsuits with the store's co-founder, 19-year old Scott Spina, as well as payment processing company Cayan.
According to a report by Sole Collector, Spina and Fat Joe's All The Way Up LLC are being sued by Cayan for $318,815 for credit card fraud. The complaint accuses the defendants of fraud, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, negligent supervision, and a violation of the RICO Act.
Much of the blame from that filing falls on Spina, but he filed his own suit against Fat Joe earlier this week, claiming he has been banned from the store since November 25th and is owed the money he invested in the store ($480,000) as well as profits owed, which he says he never received.
Spina's lawsuit also alleges that Fat Joe orchestrated a "takeover" to cut him out of the business.
Per Sole Collector:
"According to Cayan, 30 separate, unauthorized charges were processed at Up NYC between December, 2016, and January, 2017. The lawsuit alleges that Spina's personal credentials were used to process all of the charges, and that those charges came from online orders via IP addresses originating near addresses affiliated with Spina."
"Cayan became aware of the fraudulent charges after shoppers began processing chargebacks and contacted Spina and All the Way Up LLC about them. The lawsuit says that the defendants refused to pay for the fishy charges, breaching a prior agreement. Cayan had a reserve account set up to pay for some of the unauthorized charges, but it says it's still owed "at least $318,815.45 in unpaid chargebacks." The payment company believes that either Spina or All the Way Up LLC still have those ill-gotten funds in their possession."
"Spina says that Fat Joe's close friends were hired to run the store and then disconnected its cameras, locked him out of his Nike account, and effectively pushed him out of the business. In the lawsuit, Spina says that Joe incorporated a new LLC, Up NYC, and diverted all the property from their co-founded LLC, All the Way Up, to it. Spina says Cartagena still operates both of the similarly named companies."
