EXCLUSIVE: Man, 30, who insists he is Jay-Z’s illegitimate son accuses rapper of abusing legal system for 10 YEARS to avoid taking a paternity test – as he files new Supreme Court motion to UNSEAL decade-long case: ‘I will win… the law is on my side’
- Rymir Satterthwaite, now 30, has been entangled in a legal battle with Jay-Z, 53, for 10 years, over claims that the rapper is his biological father
- In February, Rymir filed a Supreme Court motion requesting that the case be unsealed, accusing Jay-Z of keeping it under wraps to avoid a paternity test
- In a letter to DailyMail.com, Jay-Z’s attorneys denied Rymir’s claims
The 30-year-old man who claims that he is the secret illegitimate son of Jay-Z has accused the world-famous rapper of abusing the legal system for more than a decade in order to avoid taking a paternity test.
Rymir Satterthwaite has been fighting to prove that Jay-Z – whose real name is Shawn Carter – is his biological father since he was 21 years old, and he is now taking that battle to the Supreme Court in an attempt to unseal the case and force Carter to take a DNA test.
Speaking to DailyMail.com about the latest twist in the roller coaster case, Rymir, from New Jersey, insisted that he wants nothing more than to see ‘justice served’ and that he will stop at nothing to ensure that happens.
He added that he wants nothing from the billionaire rapper – who has been married to chart-topping pop superstar Beyonce – other than for Jay-Z to acknowledge him as his son.
In a letter to DailyMail.com, Jay-Z’s attorneys denied Rymir’s claims, noting: ‘The allegations have been previously reviewed thoroughly by the courts and have been refuted. I am sure that will be the outcome of whatever filings Mr. Satterthwaite is may be currently considering.’
Jay-Z’s alleged illegitimate son Rymir Sattherthwaite (seen in 2015) has sent a motion to the Supreme Court, accusing the rapper of abusing the legal system to avoid taking a DNA test
Rymir alleges that Jay-Z, 53, had a romantic fling with his late mother Wanda in the early 1990s. The rapper has never denied the romance, but has refused to take a paternity test
‘This is not going to be over until justice is served,’ Rymir says. ‘I just want to live my life and, when it is all said and done, I hope that Jay-Z would want to be a part of my life, if that is God’s will.’
‘I won’t stop fighting for this until I win. And I will win because the law is on our side.’
To that end, Rymir filed a new motion with the New Jersey Supreme Court in February of this year, which has been obtained by DailyMail.com, requesting that the court unseal years worth of documents dating back to 2012 – arguing that keeping the case under wraps has prevented him from getting his due process.
The motion – which details every facet of the years-long case in a 29-page document – was rejected by the Supreme Court because, according to the Court, it did not have jurisdiction to re-open matters in the appeals court or to unseal records in the trial court.
It was then re-filed by Rymir in the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court, which is considering the matter.
It marks the latest turn in a very twisted and lengthy case – which began, Rymir says, in the fall of 1992, when his late mother Wanda alleged she had sex with Jay-Z while she was in an on-again-off-again romance with her high school sweetheart.
At the time, Wanda was 16 and Jay-Z was 22 – and far from the global rap sensation that he has since become, following the release of his debut studio album, Reasonable Doubt, in 1996.
The fling, Rymir says, was short-lived, and by the time he was born in July 1993, the alleged romance between his mother and Jay-Z had already come to an end.
Which is partly why, he claims, his mother chose to put the name of her high school sweetheart Robert Graves – who by this time had reignited his romance with Wanda was by her side in the hospital when she gave birth – on her son’s birth certificate as his biological father.
However, according to a family insider, Wanda always knew that Robert was not Rymir’s father – something that became all the more evident as her son grew and bore no resemblance to her high school sweetheart.
The 30-year-old (pictured with his late mother Wanda) says she told him that Jay-Z was his father when he was just eight years old and he has been fighting to prove that since he was 21
DailyMail.com has reached out to all parties involved, including Jay-Z and Jay-Z’s attorney, Lise Fisher.
When Rymir was eight years old, he says his mother told him that Jay-Z – who by this stage had made a name for himself as a global music icon – was his real father.
However, the question of Rymir’s paternity did not turn into a legal tussle until 2010 – two years after Jay-Z married his wife Beyonce – when Wanda’s health began to decline.
At the time, she insisted that she’d had sex with only two men at the time of Rymir’s conception, her high school sweetheart Michael and Jay-Z, and requested that a Pennsylvania court make both men take a paternity test in order to determine who was her son’s real father.
When the court issued an order, Robert agreed to undergo genetic testing – proving once without any shadow of a doubt that he and Rymir had no biological relation.
Robert’s name was removed from Rymir’s birth certificate by the court and has remained blank ever since.
In 2011, Wanda handed over custody of her son to her godmother, Lillie Coley, who vowed to carry on the fight to prove the identity of Rymir’s father once and for all, telling DailyMail.com: ‘I was just trying to help my goddaughter’s child have a relationship with his father.
‘It was so hard on him because he was ripped away from his mom and had no one to call dad.’
That same year, Lillie contacted Jay-Z’s attorney, Lise Fisher, and asked that he undergo DNA testing in New Jersey, where he and Rymir were based.
Rymir (photographed heading to court with his mom in 2014) alleges that Jay-Z has avoided taking a paternity test
Blind eye: Jay-Z and Beyonce (at the Grammy Awards in 2015) have never spoken publicly about the case, despite the multiple lawsuits filed against him
Rymir and Lillie say they complied with the request – but never received a response from Jay-Z’s legal team about the results of any genetic testing.
That same year, multiple reports surfaced alleging that Jay-Z had fathered another son with a Trinidadian model, Shennelle Scott – claims that the rapper’s team were quick to dismiss as ‘ridiculous rumors.’
Lillie and Rymir began to pursue legal action against Jay-Z in 2012, a battle that has since spanned more than ten years and seen the pair embroiled in endless legal tussles with the rapper.
During that time, Rymir insists that Jay-Z’s legal team has made endless attempts to subvert the legal system in order to avoid taking a paternity test, which the 30-year-old claims would put an end to the case once and for all.
Documentation about every legal proceeding is enclosed in Rymir’s new Supreme Court motion – which has been seen by DailyMail.com and which outlines how the case began with a pre-trial in Camden County, New Jersey on August 13, 2012.
During the pre-trial, Jay-Z’s attorney argued that Lillie – who was acting as Rymir’s legal guardian – had ‘no jurisdiction’ over his case because it was first filed by his mother Wanda in Pennsylvania, and therefore should be heard in the same state.
The rapper’s attorneys also insisted that the case should therefore be dismissed outright because Rymir was over 18 years old at the time of the pre-trial and, according to Pennsylvania state law, paternity must be established before a child reached the age of adulthood.
The court, however, disagreed, holding that the case should be tried under New Jersey law, which states that the age of ‘parentage’ is 23.
Jay-Z’s legal team then argued that the rapper should be exempt from undergoing a DNA test in New Jersey because he did not live, or own any property in the state – despite several news articles linking him to homes in Alpine and Newport.
‘My client does not have contacts in New Jersey. He doesn’t own residences. He doesn’t own anything in Alpine. He doesn’t own anything in Newport. I don’t know why that information is out there. It is on the internet,’ his lawyer told the court.
As a result of this argument, the judge dismissed the case.
However, Rymir’s attorneys immediately appealed the verdict – insisting that they had evidence in the form of three property deeds and tax records, proving that Jay-Z owned several properties in New Jersey and that his attorney therefore committed ‘fraud’ by stating otherwise in court.
For several of the properties, Jay-Z is still listed as the owner under his legal name, Shawn Corey Carter. In addition, several of his immediate family members are also listed.
Rymir and his legal team submitted the deeds as evidence for their appeal and the case resumed on December 12, 2012. During a hearing as part of that trial, Jay-Z’s attorney noted that she had ‘misspoken’ about where he really lived – having told the court that the rapper lived at 411 Broadway in New York City, which is actually the office of his record label Roc Nation.
‘I did misspeak at the last hearing because I really did think that Broadway was his home address,’ Fisher stated.
However, the case was still dismissed, after the rapper’s lawyer conended that Rumir had failed to prove that the ‘Shawn Corey Carter’ listed on the deeds was in fact her client and not another person of the same name.
DailyMail.com obtained the court transcript from August 13, 2012, where Jay-Z’s attorney Lise Fisher told the court that he ‘doesn’t own residences’ in New Jersey, thus giving the state no jurisdiction to require him to take the paternity test
DailyMail.com has also obtained property deeds and tax records for several properties allegedly owned by Jay-Z in 2012
Lillie submitted these documents to the court to show that Jay-Z owned properties in New Jersey, which would give the court jurisdiction to require DNA testing. The court, however, ruled in favor of Jay-Z
Civil rights groups NAACP and ACLU are fighting for Rymir and have sent multiple letters to New Jersey state legislatures demanding that Rymir get due process
‘Plaintiff’s request for genetic testing and for support is dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and for lack of personal jurisdiction, over defendant Shawn Corey Carter, without prejudice,’ the court ruled.
The decision came as a heavy blow to Rymir and Lillie – who insists to DailyMail.com that Jay-Z’s legal team made ‘false statements’ in order to sway the court in its decision.
In December 2014, Rymir filed a civil lawsuit against Jay-Z and his attorney, during which the rapper’s legal team made the same argument that they had done during the 2012/2013 hearing – that he did not own any property in New Jersey and could therefore not be subject to a paternity ruling in the state.
Again, the court ruled in Jay-Z’s favor and dismissed the case.
‘At the time, I had spent well over $20,000 on lawyers and other things that were related to this case,’ Rymir told DailyMail.com. ‘I didn’t have that kind of money but knew it was the right thing to do.’
Up until now, the entire case has been sealed by the court – which means that the public cannot obtain files pertaining to the case, something that Rymir hopes to change with his new Supreme Court filing.
Despite the disappointing decision, Rymir has continued to fight to prove his paternity, something that his mother Wanda spoke out about from her deathbed before passing away in 2016.
‘My name is Wanda Satterthwaite, and I am the mother of Rymir Satterthwaite,’ she stated in a video shared with RadarOnline. ‘Today is April 20, 2016, and I want the world to know that I support my son in his paternity suit with Shawn Corey Carter. I stand by my allegations regarding this man.’
Rymir has continued to fight his case, even after his mother’s death, suing Jay-Z for civil damages in 2015, claiming that the rapper had obstructed his ability to obtain closure.
In 2017, Rymir and Lillie filed a civil rights complaint to Judge Glenn A. Grant for violations that included not following normal procedures for court services based on gender, class, and retaliation.
They also filed civil rights complaints to New Jersey’s Attorney General, the Governor of New Jersey, various New Jersey senators and the Judicial Conduct Board in New Jersey.
They repeated the civil rights violations complaints to the same parties again in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Once again, all of the cases were dismissed.
In a 2022 YouTube video, Rymir made clear his feelings about the case, telling the world: ‘I don’t feel like our rights are appreciated. There is a lot of fraud and collusion that has been going on. I am not going to let that pass.
‘We are going in there with our hard-earned money to fight fraud. The judges are allowing this to go on. Someone over them should be held responsible for this.
‘I just want everyone to keep their eyes open. We should never go into a court room and feel like we are the victims. We got stepped on and tried to get dragged through the system.
‘I will not let anyone put this on my name, my mother’s name, or my godmother’s name. We will fight for what is right like we have been doing all these years,’ Rymir said in the video.’
Jay-Z has never publicly spoken about the case.
However, in his 2018 album with Beyoncé called The Carters – You Heard About Us, he vaguely addressed the accusations.
The lyrics to the song state, ‘Billie Jean in his prime. For the thousandth time, the kid ain’t mine. Online they call me dad, kiddingly. You’re not supposed to take this dad thing literally.’
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