BAD RAP

Lawyer Presses for Criminal Inquiry Into Rapper T.I. and Wife Tiny Over Sex Assault Claims

The celebrities denied allegations that they had drugged and assaulted multiple women, referring to the claims as a “shakedown.”

A lawyer is pressing for a criminal inquiry on behalf of 11 women who have accused rapper T.I. and his wife Tameka ‘Tiny’ Harris and their entourage of drugging and sexually assaulting them, The New York Times reported Sunday. The women described “sexual abuse, forced ingestion of illegal narcotics, kidnapping, terroristic threats and false imprisonment,” according to letters sent to authorities by the lawyer, New York-based Tyrone Blackburn. The couple’s lawyer, Steve Sadow, denied the allegations in a statement. “These allegations are nothing more than the continuation of a sordid shakedown campaign that began on social media and now attempts to manipulate the press and misuse the justice system,” Sadow wrote.

Allegations against the couple first surfaced in January, when Atlanta businesswoman Sabrina Peterson said on Instagram that T.I. put a gun to her head in front of children in 2009, later sharing several allegations of abuse against the couple. While T.I. and Harris denied these claims, it prompted VH1 to halt production of their reality show, T.I. and Tiny: Friends and Family Hustle. “Given the serious nature of the allegations, we have decided to suspend production in order to gather more information,” the network said in a statement.