CJ Wallace wins a ruling as his defamation case moves to a damages hearing

CJ Wallace has won another round in his long-running fight with Jonathan Hay. A federal judge in Tampa has denied Hay's request to undo a default ruling entered against him, and set a hearing on damages for Oct. 8. Both sides must file witness and evidence lists by Sept. 24.

The order was signed by Judge Mary Scriven after months of filings from both sides, and was obtained by AllHipHop. Wallace, the son of the Notorious B.I.G., sued Hay for defamation over accusations tied to Sean Combs. Hay claimed Wallace helped arrange a sexual assault against him by Combs, an accusation Wallace has consistently denied and describes as a smear campaign.

Hay never filed a proper response to the suit, and the court entered a default against him in May. He later asked for that default to be set aside, arguing he had never been properly served. The judge disagreed, pointing to a long record of avoided service: court filings show Wallace tried to serve Hay 17 times using three different process servers, hired a private investigator and ran a skip trace before finally serving him through the Florida Secretary of State in April.

Hay blamed his silence on a separate lawsuit he was defending in California. The judge called that explanation insufficient for months of inaction, and found that his answer offered no substantive evidence behind the defence he said he would mount if the case reopened.

The dispute goes back to a stalled Biggie remix project from 2020 called Ready to Dance, on which Hay worked as a producer and publicist. According to AllHipHop's earlier reporting, the deal collapsed after the first single underperformed, and Wallace and producer Willie Mack shelved the rest. Hay said nothing publicly for years, at one point praising Wallace as an honour to work with, before beginning a run of interviews with new claims in October 2024.

What remains is the money. A default settles liability but not the amount, so the October hearing is where Wallace has to prove what the statements cost him. It is the second recent hip-hop court fight to circle the Notorious B.I.G. estate, after a Delaware court ruled against Faith Evans in the battle over his catalogue.