Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Financial services myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
Accounting firm BDO lost celebrity clients led by the rapper Jay-Z following accusations that a staff member had been stealing money from customer accounts.
People familiar with the matter said Jay-Z and Megan Thee Stallion were among the stars to have severed relationships with BDO’s Miami operations, which manages personal and business finances ranging from paying bills to filing taxes on behalf of the rich and famous.
Jay-Z’s departure stemmed from anger over how BDO dealt with accusations in 2022 that a staff member had stolen from the rapper Joseph Cartagena — who goes by the professional name Fat Joe — and that partners had failed to spot inconsistencies in his financial affairs, the people said.
The employee, Vanessa Rodriguez, used credit cards and bank accounts belonging to Fat Joe, his wife and his businesses to take out thousands of dollars of cash and pay school fees, according to a lawsuit the rapper filed against the firm, Rodriguez and the partner overseeing the account in September 2022.
Fat Joe claimed BDO’s management of his affairs was so chaotic that his mortgage payments were often late, it was impossible to reconcile different accounts, and it appeared his credit card bills were sometimes paid from accounts belonging to other celebrity clients, including Major League Baseball players.
Last month, Rodriguez, the former staff member at the centre of those allegations, was indicted in Miami on four counts of fraud, accused of spending on credit cards that did not belong to her. More details of the charges, and the names of two alleged victims, have been kept under seal. Rodriguez has not entered a formal plea, but she told the Financial Times she planned to plead not guilty and that accusations made against her in the 2022 lawsuit were also untrue. Rodriguez declined to comment further.
BDO said in a legal filing that it denied the allegations in Fat Joe’s lawsuit, which was settled on undisclosed terms earlier this year. The concerns detailed in the suit have had wider repercussions inside the accounting firm, however. The departure of several high-profile clients has cast a pall over BDO’s January 2021 acquisition of Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Farra, which was the largest accounting firm in Florida and had signed Fat Joe, Jay-Z and others as clients about a decade ago.
Staff working for Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, were angered by how BDO responded to the accusations of theft from Fat Joe, who is a client of Jay-Z’s entertainment company Roc Nation. They felt the accounting firm became overly defensive and failed to quickly provide Fat Joe with full access to his financial affairs, said people familiar with the matter and his 2022 lawsuit.
That anger led to Jay-Z’s departure as a BDO client in 2023, the people said, within months of Fat Joe leaving.
Meanwhile, earlier concerns about Rodriguez also contributed to another Roc Nation star, rapper Megan Thee Stallion, splitting from BDO, the people said. She left as a client in 2022. Spokespeople for Jay-Z and the other stars declined to comment.
BDO said the firm “does not comment on pending litigation or matters related to current or former clients”.
Additional reporting by Sara Germano