Busta Rhymes has launched defamation counterclaims against a former assistant who accused the veteran rapper of punching him in the face for using his phone on the job.

Rhymes (Trevor Smith Jr.) was hit with a lawsuit this summer from Dashiel Gables, who worked as the rapper’s personal assistant for roughly six months starting in July 2024. Gables alleges Rhymes routinely abused employees and that the rapper physically assaulted him in the lobby of a Brooklyn luxury high-rise last January.

At the time the lawsuit was filed, Rhymes called it “an attempted shakedown by a disgruntled former assistant” and vowed to countersue. He has now followed through with a defamation counterclaim docketed on Monday (Oct. 13) in federal court.

“Smith did not assault or batter Gables,” writes Rhymes’ attorney Patrick Butler. “Gables knew the statements were false, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, including by fabricating allegations of criminal conduct and violence, omitting exculpatory facts and deliberately ignoring contrary evidence.”

The countersuit alleges that Gables’ very public lawsuit has damaged Rhymes’ reputation and caused him humiliation and embarrassment. The rapper also says he lost two advertising campaigns as a result of Gables’ defamatory claims.

Generally speaking, statements made in court are shielded from any liability for defamation under a principle known as the litigation privilege. Rhymes’ countersuit attempts to get around this limitation by alleging that Gables shared his lawsuit with the press and encouraged media reports about it.

Gables’ lawyers did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.

The lawsuit, filed in August, claimed that Rhymes “routinely degraded” Gables and other employees by screaming, threatening, smacking and spitting at them. The rapper demanded that Gables work more than 15 hours a day but refused to pay him overtime, according to the former assistant.

Gables said this poor treatment escalated in the early hours of Jan. 10, when he was unloading Rhymes’ luggage in the lobby of the rapper’s Brooklyn apartment building. Gables allegedly received a call from his daughter and tried to respond via text, sending Rhymes “into a rage.”

“He screamed ‘Stay the f–k off your phone,” wrote Gables’ lawyers in the complaint. “When plaintiff explained it was his daughter, Busta Rhymes responded, ‘Don’t tell me about your f–king kid, what the f–k that gotta do with me? When Plaintiff responded that it could have been an emergency, Busta Rhymes asked ‘are you talking while I’m talking?’ and then, with a closed fist, punched plaintiff in the face.”

The former assistant alleged he had to go to the hospital to get treatment for his injuries, and that he was later “blacklisted” from the hip-hop industry. Gables also filed a police report against Rhymes, but no charges were ever brought.

Rhymes denies all of Gables’ allegations in his Monday answer and counterclaim. He also asserts a slew of defenses to the lawsuit, including that “any conduct to which plaintiff was allegedly subjected constituted no more than petty slights and trivial inconveniences.”