Everything but "CRAZY IN LOVE" Jay-Z and Beyonce on the verge of divorce?

Are Jay Z and Beyonce really on the rocks?  (According to Page 6)

They are one of the most famous couples on Earth, yet intensely private — rarely allowing a glimpse of anything but the picture of a marriage and partnership that is constantly, blissfully happy. But a source who has been close to Beyoncé and Jay Z for years tells The Post that all is not well — and hasn’t been for quite some time. This is the first peek behind the firewall that is Beyoncé and Jay Z Inc. — what drew them together, why they’re headed for a split and why love was never the thing that held them together.

IT WAS A MASTER STROKE OF MARKETING: SHE GAVE HIM CLASS, HE GAVE HER CRED.

“There’s still something there, even though it’s not going to last,” says the source. “Business is always part of the equation. They know they’re the king and queen of hip-hop — and really, all of music. Neither wants to lose that.” Their current “On the Run” tour is predicted to gross $100 million, according to Forbes — which also ranked Beyoncé the world’s most powerful celebrity of 2014, with Jay Z ranked sixth. Billboard ranked the couple No. 1 on their February 2014 Power 100 list. Their combined net worth, according the International Business Times, is nearly $1 billion.

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Jay Z (left) deflects a kick from Solange (right), who is held back by a bodyguard.Photo: TMZ

But in the weeks since Beyoncé’s sisterSolange was caught attacking Jay Z in a hotel elevator after the Met Gala, the couple’s tightly controlled image has been crumbling. And while they’ve been pushing back, kissing on stage and playing happy family on Instagram, the source says Jay and Bey are permanently broken, and that both are at fault. “Knowing them as I do, obviously there’s a little something to certain rumors,” the source says. “When your man or your woman isn’t getting it done for you, and I’m talking emotionally, not necessarily sexually … they keep things quiet.” Not for much longer.

‘They’re the only sharks’

When Jay Z and Beyoncé first got together in 1999, she was a star but a sheltered one. At 19, she still lived with her parents in Houston — dad Matthew, who quit his job at Xerox to manage her career with Destiny’s Child, and mom Tina, who became the group’s stylist. She hinted at being a virgin, and it’s reported that she left school at 14. Jay Z, then 30, had emerged from the Brooklyn projects as a hip-hop powerhouse. Having released his critically acclaimed debut “Reasonable Doubt” in 1996, he had a breakthrough commercial smash with 1998’s “Vol. 2 … Hard Knock Life.” A year later, Jay Z was arrested for allegedly stabbing producer Lance “Un” Rivera in a dispute over bootlegging; Jay pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and walked away with three years’ probation. Jay Z and Beyoncé have always been circumspect about the beginnings of their romance, even as they stoked intrigue with their collaborations.

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Photo: WireImage

After breaking with Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé’s next project was a duet with Jay on his “’03 Bonnie and Clyde,” and in the video, they played a hip-hop version of the outlaw couple. When Beyoncé released her first solo album, 2003’s “Dangerously in Love,” Jay appeared on two tracks — including the first single and video for “Crazy in Love.”

It was a master stroke of marketing: She gave him class, he gave her cred. Jay Z was infatuated with Beyoncé, says the source, but the bottom line was business; he knew he could do big things for her, and together they could be a juggernaut. For Beyoncé, however, it was a slower burn. According to an interview with the website Celebuzz, her uncle Larry Beyince said that initially his niece had no interest. “He was after her and she wasn’t,” Beyince said. “She told me she wasn’t too fond of him … I guess she wasn’t attracted to him.”

The source says Beyoncé was most interested in Jay’s mind. “Jay’s a kingmaker; she recognized that. This was a come-up for her, no question. She had to learn the ropes as presented by Jay — but really, this was mostly about business.” As for dating others, he says, “they each had guilty pleasures.” The source believes that, along the way, she did really fall for Jay Z, and her parents, who had groomed Beyoncé to be a star from a very young age, were fine with it — for a time.

But Matthew Knowles — who was described by former Destiny’s Child member LaTavia Roberson as “a drill sergeant” who made the girls work hours a day, seven days a week — slowly found himself edged out of his daughter’s life and career by Jay Z. Beyoncé had gone from one man to another, never truly being on her own.

“There’s no bigger controller than Jay,” the source says. “She’s great, but she’d be a little lower on the totem pole if it weren’t for hooking up with him.” In terms of ambition, talent, business acumen and work ethic, Beyoncé and Jay Z were perfectly matched. “They are solid, solid business people who know what they’re doing,” says the source, with Jay the mastermind. Their image, joint and separate, is based on exclusivity and unavailability; everything from the drop date of an album (2013’s “Beyoncé,” with its surprise one-day onslaught of 14 tracks and 17 videos) to a baby (Blue Ivy, born on a cleared-out hospital floor in NYC) is shrouded in mystery. Instead of interviews, they post to Instagram or drop clues in their lyrics. Beyoncé herself has spent every single day since 2005 being trailed by her own personal camera crew, which documents each waking moment of her life.

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Beyonce performs onstage during the “On The Run Tour: Beyonce And Jay Z.”Photo: WireImage

In 2013, Beyoncé told GQ magazine that she stores the footage in a climate-controlled warehouse based on the NBC library. “I now know that yes, I am powerful,” she told GQ. “I’m more powerful than my mind can even digest and understand.” “They don’t subscribe to that ‘teach-a-person-to-fish’ thing,” says the source. “They’ll give you a fish once in a while, but they let everyone know that they’re the only sharks in the water. Jay hangs with some of the crew from [his company] Roc Nation, but he’s doing bigger things than even they can keep up with. And Beyoncé only really gives her sister Solange and [ex-Destiny’s Child members] Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams any real love. But even they can’t swing by without first getting clearance.”

And it can be hard to stay in touch — Beyoncé and Jay Z both change their cellphone numbers every two weeks. Even other celebrities aren’t immune to quality control. It’s not whom they hang out with, says the source — “it’s who hangs out with them.” According to the source, they shunned Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s wedding because it was too low-rent for the Jay Z/Beyoncé brand. “They are guarding like hell their status,” the source says. “Beyoncé wasn’t going to allow a Kardashian to socially climb her. And Jay didn’t want Kanye with Kim — he thinks it’s bad for business. I think Jay lost a little respect for Kanye there.”

‘Business first’

Over the past few months, says the source, Beyoncé has been losing respect for Jay Z and, ever on-brand, she’s been dropping hints. While performing “Resentment” during the couple’s June 28 show in Cincinnati, Beyoncé changed the lyrics from “Been ridin’ with you for six years” to “Been ridin’ with you for 12 years.” That would reference the year they became a couple.

‘“SOLANGE WAS LIKE, ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH — YOU MUST BE [SCREWING] RIHANNA.’’

 - Solange, According To Source

And after the lyric “I gotta look at her in her eyes and see she’s had half of me,” Beyoncé tacked on the lines, “She ain’t even half of me/That bitch will never be.” Recent photos show that the “IV” tattooed on her ring finger — for her birthday, Jay’s birthday, and their wedding date — has been erased.

The source says the elevator fight after the Met Ball was really over Jay’s protégé Rihanna, whom he allegedly planned to meet later that night at his 40/40 club. “Solange was like, ‘Enough is enough — you must be [screwing] Rihanna,’” says the source. “To many people who know them, they know it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

Today, the source says, it’s not whether they’ll split, but how they’ll split — adding that the only time Jay and Beyoncé are really together is on stage. They’re allegedly traveling with marriage counselors, but Jay — as he’s always done — spends much of his time on the phone, tending to business. “His phone’s constantly ringing,” says the source, “Jay trying to make deal after deal.” Calls to representatives for the couple by The Post were not returned.

The question now is whether to stay married while essentially living separate lives — becoming the Bill and Hillary of hip-hop — or publicly divorce. Ultimately, it will be about the brand. “There’s face-saving involved — they don’t want to be looked at like other celebrities out there,” says the source. “They are business people first, entertainers second. Husband and wife comes somewhere down the line.”

The Poor Door! The Haves and the Have Nots, plan is in full effect!

NYC Apartment Building Will Have Separate Door for Lower Rent Tenants. What’s Up With That?

New York City has approved plans for a new luxury high-rise on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that will include a separate entrance for tenants in “affordable” housing,reports the New York Post.Even the conservative Postmanages to see the class angle, calling this a plan for a “poor door.” (The quotation marks are the Post‘s.)

This controversy has been roiling in New York for a while. The Daily Mail unearths a 2013 quotation in a real-estate trade paper from the developer of another project (not the one on the West Side) defending separate entrances. It’s one for the ages:

‘No one ever said that the goal was full integration of these populations,’ said David Von Spreckelsen, senior vice president at Toll Brothers. ‘So now you have politicians talking about that, saying how horrible those back doors are. I think it’s unfair to expect very high-income homeowners who paid a fortune to live in their building to have to be in the same boat as low-income renters, who are very fortunate to live in a new building in a great neighborhood.’

Let’s keep the rich and not-so-rich in separate boats. Nice. You can make arguments for what the developers are doing here—here’s one—but, wow, that’s not it.

If you don’t live in New York and you aren’t familiar with the crazy real estate market here, this story might need a little translation. Your questions answered:

If the developers don’t want to mix different tenants, why include “affordable” units at all?

Because they are getting subsidies—pretty valuable ones—to build them.

There is not enough of any kind of housing in NYC, but housing for people with low-to-middle incomes is especially scarce. The long-term answer to that is to build lots more housing, and there’s a case to be made that building in NYC should just be a lot easier than it is. The fear on the other side is that new construction will mostly go to the luxury end of the market.

One stop-gap has been to encourage developers to encourage builders to include various kinds of affordable units in their projects. There may be tax benefits passed on to buyers of condos in buildings with affordable units, for example. The Upper West Side project, developed by a group called Extell, got zoning rights to build more units, says the blog West Side Rag, and Extell can sell those rights to other nearby developers.

West Side Rag also says the developer argues that, since the affordable units are in a separate part of the building, it legally must have its own entrance. That could have been avoided had the affordable units been mixed throughout the building. But this particular high-rise offers coveted views, including of the Hudson River. Spreading the units around would presumably have meant giving up some prime spots to affordable units, cutting profits for the developer.

What’s “affordable”?

To qualify for these units, a tenant would need to earn less than 60% of the area’s median income, adjusted for family size, says West Side Rag. For a family of four, that’s about $52,ooo a year. That’s twice the Federal poverty line and above the median U.S. household income, though making ends meet in NYC on that much, with a couple of kids, isn’t easy. That family could rent a two bedroom under this program for about $1,100 a month. So yeah, New York’s version of affordable is different than in other places.

What Docs tell their friends about preventing CANCER!

What Doctors Tell Their Friends About Preventing Cancer By Lisa Mulcahy Photo by Redbook

You don’t have to give up sweets
"Lots of people I know think that sugar causes cancer so you should avoid it at all costs. It’s true that cancer cells do utilize sugar to grow, but when friends tell me proudly, ‘I’ve cut sweets out of my diet completely,’ I tell them, ‘You don’t need to do that.’ Now, that’s not to say you should indulge in all the soda and cupcakes you want, because data shows that a diet packed with empty calories from sugar-filled processed foods or soft drinks can up your cancer risk. But if you’re eating right, filling your plate with healthy food, it’s fine to have the occasional sweet treat. A close friend was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, and even in her situation, enjoying, say, a cookie or slice of pie is more than okay." -Nam Tran, M.D., neuro-oncologist and surgeon at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, FL


Got an abnormal pap smear? Stop smoking, pronto!
“Up to 80 percent of women have been exposed to the HPV virus by the time they hit middle age, so it’s not surprising for me to hear about this diagnosis from my friends. Most women with HPV do not develop cervical cancer. However, it’s not unusual for someone to go in for their Pap test and get abnormal results that can indicate precancer. More than one has said to me, ‘There’s nothing I can do though, right?’ My reply? ‘Uh—yeah, there is!’ Once the precancerous cells are removed, you should stop smoking to minimize the chance of a recurrence. Research has shown that carcinogens found in tobacco actually show up in a woman’s cervical mucus, and those carcinogens create a greater likelihood that HPV will be persistent, upping your risk of developing full-blown cervical cancer. Another reason to ditch the cigs!” -Lauren Streicher, M.D., associate clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University in Chicago and author of The Essential Guide to Hysterectomy

Play mole detective with your pals
“Last summer, I was having a lovely time with some houseguests by a pool, and one of my friends walked past me in his swim trunks. Suddenly, I noticed a dark spot on his back. ‘I think you have a melanoma!’ I blurted out. ‘That little mole?’ he replied. ‘I haven’t had time for a doctor to take a look at it, but I’m not worried.’ I told him, ‘That’s not just a mole. Come into my office and we’ll find out what it is for sure.’ It did turn out to be melanoma. Only a doctor can diagnose a suspicious mole as skin cancer, but really anyone can spot one. That’s why monthly self-exams are so important—and friends can examine areas we may not see, like the back and scalp. So be sensitive to your own instincts that tell you something on a friend or spouse has changed. Any mole that looks suspicious, appears out of nowhere, or changes in color or size should be checked by a physician.” -Sandra Read, M.D., spokesperson for the Skin Cancer Foundation



Snack on some cancer-fighting nuts
“I tell my family and friends to eat an ounce of any kind of nut they like per day; research I’ve just done shows this may powerfully prevent you from getting cancer. My study showed an 11-percent drop in cancer risk for those who ate 160 calories’ worth of tree nuts or peanuts [about an ounce, and no, peanut butter doesn’t count] on a daily, consistent basis. We think this could be because one or more minerals in nuts affect the metabolic pathways in your body in a good way-say, nuts may reduce the inflammation that directly causes some cancer cells to grow. Our study also suggested that people who eat nuts are less likely to put on weight. That’s great, because obesity is another cancer risk, so there’s an additional layer of cancer prevention for you.” -Charles Fuchs, M.D., professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Treatment Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston

Don’t avoid this lifesaving test
“Friends of mine who haven’t had a colonoscopy worry about how uncomfortable the procedure is. But I tell them that’s no reason to gamble with their health. Screening can spot polyps and other changes in the colon so early that you can be treated before they even develop into cancer. You should have the test starting at age 50, or earlier if your doctor feels that your family history warrants it. I also tell my pals: The procedure is the easy part; you’re safely put under sedation so you’ll be feeling no pain. Truthfully, by the time you’re done preparing for the test-especially drinking that liquid you’re given beforehand—the most uncomfortable part is over. So schedule that appointment, and go through with it.” -Armando Sardi, M.D., surgical oncologist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore



Making just one diet change can cut your cancer risk
“I tell my friends and relatives that fresh fruit absolutely needs to be in their daily diet; studies have suggested that consuming it is associated with a reduced risk of cancer. The most potent fruits are strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, oranges, grapefruits, lemons, cherries, and red grapes. To make getting them in even easier, pick up those prepared fresh fruit cups at the grocery store. I buy them every week for my clinic staff and walk around delivering them personally, saying, ‘This is the way you can prevent cancer!’” -Gerald Gehr, M.D., oncologist/hematologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Nashua, NH

T.I. "Episode" featuring Chris Brown, E-40, Actors from the series "Hit The Floor"

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E-40, Episode feat. TI & Chris Brown, Music, More Music Videos

T.I.’s New Found Colorblindness For Iggy Azalea by BENÉ VIERA

I walked into SVA Theatre for T.I.’s “No Mediocre” screening late rocking midnight black and gold shades. For once a rapper was on time. He was already on stage talking to the evening’s host, Lil Duval, discussing his upcoming album Paperwork. Basically Paper Trail Part II, unofficially.

T.I. was doing that charismatic thing he does where he tries to navigate two worlds: the certified street cred he’s earned from his past, and his present that includes a modern day Cosby-esque image on his hit reality show “T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle.” In one breath he wanted it known that he’s still a “real nigga.” In the other he needed the room full of mostly white media and record label heads to know he can sound smart.

His big booty white girl protege, Iggy Azalea, sat two rows in front of me rocking a slick bun pony with humongous gold hoops. The “Fancy” singer was surrounded by a bunch of black dudes, a couple chicks and some celeb notables like Irv Gotti.

Music editor boyfriend had convinced me to come out knowing I’d been down with the southern rapper since the days he went by T.I.P. before promptly changing to T.I., out of respect for Q-Tip.

When his debut I’m Serious dropped in 2001, I was a high school junior in Nashville. The east coast wasn’t checking for T.I. yet, but in the south where trap beats reign supreme, he was golden. “Dope Boyz” and “Do It Baby (Stick It Baby)” knocked hard in our tricked out whips with two 15s in the trunk. It wasn’t until the sophomore follow-up, Trap Muzik (2003), that’d end up being the blueprint for what would later catapult him to mainstream success.

By then I was a ride or die fan.

T.I. and Duval are babbling on, dropping a lot of “niggas” and “mothafuckas” when the topic of Iggy arises.

“I can’t believe we’re at a place in America where we still see color,” he says in direct response to people (read: black women) who’ve asked him, “Why couldn’t it be a black woman?” Because apparently people had been asking him why he couldn’t mentor and put on a black female rapper.

I was immediately uninterested in where the conversation was going. To be fair, I’m not interested in anyone who talks about colorblindness. It’s both an ignorant concept (every single person sees color) and it shouldn’t be the goal. I don’t want people to not see my color. I don’t want to be oppressed and discriminated against because of it.

Hearing talk of colorblindness from an artist I’d been a fan of for more than a decade, all because he wanted to cape for a white female rapper who once rapped, “When the relay starts I’m a runaway slave-master,” was disappointing. A black man from the once-segregated south who understands the unfair sentencing in the judicial system— one that he has his own history with —really thinks we shouldn’t see color? Ok, Clifford.

Duval isn’t a cultural critic or journalist so I didn’t expect any type of nuance about the idea of colorblindness. Enough of his tweets have creeped in to my timeline to know he’s not exactly W.E.B. Dubois smart, or even Tyler Perry smart. So, there’s that.

T.I. stops doing the whole double consciousness routine to play some snippets from his forthcoming record: “I’m A King,” the Pharrell-produced “Paperwork,” “G Shit” and “New National Anthem,” which he referred to as a politically charged record.


Before introducing “New National Anthem” T.I. said, “They’ve always tried to make it seem like we were the problem. However, now we’ve seen in recent history that they have bigger problems than us. ‘Cause we don’t run in movie theaters killing people, we don’t go in schools in Connecticut shooting kids. This is not us.”

Wait. You don’t want America to see color when it comes to your championing for Iggy yet you recognize that we, the Black folks, aren’t “Go[ing] in schools in Connecticut shooting kids” like they, The Whites? T.I. is no more interested in being colorblind than he is in going back to jail. He wants to appease a white demographic for the white female rapper he hopes will make waves in the rap game. I see you, bruh.

By the time he played the first official single “No Mediocre” featuring his beloved Iggy Azalea, I was unable to deal with his synopsis about the song being for women and how we should be oh so thankful for it.

“Because I love women so much, I chose women as my topic of discussion,” he says about the single. “So, you’re welcome. Now ladies, you were already born on a pedestal. The only thing that can take you down, is you. Ok?…It’s conveyed through your actions and presentation of yourself. I’ll give you an example, if your bras and ya panties ain’t matching and you know you gon’ get naked later on and somebody else gon’ see it, man, you being mediocre. You need to get yourself together.”

It was more of the same of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. school of sexism and respectability politics that proclaims women are asking to be disrespected if dressed too sexy.

Somehow a white female rapper appropriating black women’s whole style with a fix-a-flat booty, faux southern ‘hood accent isn’t mediocre, but black women with their tracks showing is soooo mediocre. And this song is for us. Cute.

I couldn’t get out of the listening fast enough.

Maybe I was so bothered by his rhetoric because the room was hella white, and some white people tend to take what black celebs say as the holy grail voice of The Blacks. Maybe I’m overly sensitive because Iggy gets to appropriate shit black women have authentically been doing for decades, but gets to do so without the scathing degradation of insults of being a “bitch,” “hoodrat,” “thot” or “ghetto ho,” something black women aren’t exactly afforded the privilege of. After she’s done playing dress up, her whiteness remains intact. Maybe I’m sick of culture vultures dominating black music and the black men who rush to co-sign or save them. Maybe I’m frustrated by the trendy suburban white boys whose voices and pens are at the forefront of coverage on the culture black folks created while black journalists and black press are treated like dust. And yes, I’m definitely sick of hip-hop writers/journalists (black and white) who do very little critique of hip-hop, moving the culture forward, but come to events to stan out, get a quick quote for their blogs and tell everyone how dope the music is.


James Baldwin once noted, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” It’s akin to how I feel about hip-hop.

The personal is always political. Separating the misogyny and cluelessness some artists have about race (looking at you Pharrell with this “new black” BS) from the music is an impossible task. And just like I want rappers to be more informed about their ideas about race, misogyny and sexism, I want journalists who cover hip-hop to be more honest, critical thinkers, and to create better content around the culture we’re consuming daily.

There was a time music journalism did this. I’ve heard the stories of rappers and their cliques coming up to magazine offices ready to bang you out over an unfavorable album review. I’ve read the public articles taking Dr. Dre to task for beating up Dee Barnes. Not advocating for the days a rapper would come see about you, but the honesty and fearlessness music writers had then is desperately missed.

This must be what it feels like to be the old lady in the club.

Everybody’s too busy dickriding now, I suppose.

No one wants to be called a hater. Few reporters wants to ask hard questions because the artist may end the interview. No one wants to think beyond how the beat makes them bop their head to the bass. It’s much easier if we all write the same corny lists and praise the artists we love.

God forbid someone say maybe Iggy just ain’t that good and she’s benefitting from the machine of the mainstream media agenda to make her pop, cultural appropriation and black men’s co-signs. And God forbid that dissenter be a woman.

May as well put back on those black shades, nod to the beat and shutup. The bass is too loud for anyone to hear you anyway.

*Full disclosure: I’ve interviewed both T.I. (read here) and his longitme friend and business partner Jason Geter (read here). Both interviews went incredibly well. That was business, this is my opinion from a fan’s perspective.

Crumbling Crumbs..The famous Cup Cake bakery is CLOSED!

Crumbs Bake Shop closed its 48 stores for good on Monday, July 7, 2014.
A New York cupcake empire has crumbled.

Crumbs Bake Shop, famous for its 600-calorie, 4-inch, frosting-topped sweets, notified employees Monday that the popular chain had run out of dough.

Its 48 stores across 10 states were closing for good Monday — the same day employees were notified they were losing their jobs, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The chain is known for its huge 600-calorie, frosting-topped cupcakes.



“Regrettably Crumbs has been forced to cease operations and is immediately attending to the dislocation of its devoted employees while it evaluates its limited remaining options,” the company said.

Crumbs had been touted at the world’s largest gourmet cupcake business with 70 stores globally — but its sales had been falling off for several years.

The company shuttered dozens in a series of retrenchments between 2012 and 2013 — but sales continued to spiral downward.

Crumbs was born out of the “Sex and the City” craze that made Magnolia Bakery a household name.

Employees at two Crumbs stores in Manhattan said they were in the dark about the imminent closures.

“I honestly do not know what’s going to happen. All I know is we’re open right now, and the store is full so I can’t talk long,” said one worker at Crumbs on 72nd St.

Crumbs Bakery has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

RHOA star - Apollo Nida facing some serious jail time!

It's true what they say, "your past will come back to haunt you" or is this Nida's present? The RHOA star Apollo Nida is facing some serious jail time come tomorrow July 8th, 2014 at 2pm in Atlanta GA. Back on May 6, 2014 Nida plead guilty to charges of, Identification theft and bank fraud.

Nida created mock collection agencies in order to gain information for Identity theft, to claim unclaimed funds, refunds from the U.S. Department Of Urban Housing Development, U.S. Treasury checks, Unclaimed income tax checks, and much more. At this very moment, Nida's attorney's are hoping to get his criminal history dropped from a V to a IV so Nida can receive the least amount of time once sentenced. A level V criminal history is reserved for violent offenders, drug kingpins, murderers, and such. His lawyers argue that Nida's criminal history doesn't reflect these crimes.

However the one question that so obvious is, "where is Phaedra during these times"? Every since Apollo plead guilty to the charges Phaedra has disappeared from his side. She's off vacationing with friends and family. Maybe it's best for her and the kids at this time, who knows. But a story wouldn't be story without some TEA:

Here's some TEA from BlackAmeriaWeb.com

In their statement today, the U.S. Department of Justice laid out the case against Nida:
“This defendant participated in a sweeping fraud scheme that exploited many segments of the financial system, including phony claims submitted to federal and state agencies, loans secured by vehicles, and even basic identity theft associated with stolen checks,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. “The extensive nature of the fraud is unfortunate and breathtaking. Prosecutions like this case help to highlight the vulnerabilities in the financial system, so that we can prevent future schemes and protect our citizens and government agencies from theft like this.”

What the other involved Co-defendants had to say about everyone's involvement!

”Nida’s co-conspirator Gayla St. Julien was sentenced to 61 months in April. Realitytea.com says St. Julien issued a statement through a relative, and admitted that she cooperated in the investigation against Nida.
“Eight months ago, I did assist the Secret Service in only holding Apollo accountable for his part in the crimes,” St. Julien’s statement read. “Apollo and I have a very long history together we often referred to each other as best friends. I protected, kept Apollo’s secrets, covered up lots of affairs and when his mother lay fighting the battle against AIDS at St. Saint Joseph hospital, I was the one he called. We cried together and prayed together. Apollo made a promise to me that he would support me if the inevitable ever happened. Two weeks prior to the inevitable happening I was made aware of my arrest, I went to him and he abandoned me. With a husband and children, I faced this head on. I wasn’t going to run. On that fateful day, I already knew I was on my own.”
St. Julien had words for Parks as well, stating that she kept Parks “out of it” because someone had to stay home to take care of the children.



On his part, AJC.com reports that Nida says part of the motivation for the illegal schemes was to keep up with his reality TV star wife. Nida married Parks fresh out of jail after serving five years on a federal racketeering charge related to auto title fraud.Parks signed a $60o,000 contract at one point, and Nida says he had a nervous breakdown trying to keep up a front as a reality show star. When he was thwarted opening a legal business because of his probation, he simply fell back on what he already knew best.
“I got sucked in and engulfed and lost sight of things,” he said.
He said that the takes full responsibility for what happened, but that he didn’t think he was hurting anyone since his schemes were mostly crimes against the government and private businesses.
Nida will be sentenced on July 8. Unfortunately, the father of two boys, Dylan and Ayden, is facing up to thirty years in prison. In addition, he may also have to pay a $ 1 million fine.