In September, the New York Daily News ran a story that would indicate that notorious music executive Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond was a federal informant, or as hip-hop fans would put it: a snitch."
In the report, the paper claimed that sealed court documents they obtained proved that Rosemond had been working with the government, giving information to help in convicting other known criminals.
Well, the music executive is firing back, filing a $100 million lawsuit against the Daily News and former Los Angeles Times journalist Chuck Phillips, in an effort to clear his name.
Vibe.com obtained court documents outlining Henchman's suit, and got a statement from his attorney, David Feinstein, regarding the paper's claims.
Feinstein says that the snitch accusations about his client stem from a 2008 L.A. Times article, written by Chuck Phillips, which pointed to both Rosemond and Diddy as conspirators in the 1994 Quad Studios shooting of Tupac.
Henchman's camp claims Phillips' reports are "fabricated" and always seem to pop up every year around the anniversary of Tupac's passing ... and eventually led to the recent story posted by the Daily News.
"It never fails every year around Tupac's death that Chuck Phillips raises his fabricated mouth against Jimmy Rosemond, but we intend to silence his foul mouth with this lawsuit and bury these tampered minutes and paperwork that Chuck Phillip received from jealous and envious inmates, which is the basis of this fairy tale story the Daily News wrote," Feinstein said in a statement to Vibe.com.
"This is why we've named them both in this lawsuit and there's more to come as our investigation unfolds," the attorney continued. "On more than one occasion both Daily News and Chuck Phillips have contacted the same inmate trying to coerce him into saying Jimmy was an informant. We have affidavits from inmates to prove the efforts of their coercion and how determined they were in proving their point. Even after the article's release, Chuck Phillips continued in his quest to change the mind of individuals who refused to lie against Jimmy Rosemond at grand jury proceedings."
In court documents for the lawsuit, Rosemond alleges that Phillips main source is James Sabatino, which they say is a "a con artist who uses people's names to advance his own agenda."
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Tuesday, October 19th 2010 at 4:11PM
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