Says rapper owes him 32G
By HELEN PETERSON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, May 7th 2003, 7:02AM
Hip-hop sensation 50 Cent rapped about getting shot up on his best-selling CD but never mentions he forgot to pay the doctor who patched him up.
The 27-year-old rap star, who survived nine gunshot wounds in an attack three years ago, is being sued by the doctor who treated him at Jamaica Hospital in Queens.
Dr. Nader Paksima, an orthopedic surgeon, says the chart-topper owes him $32,511.87, which has gone unpaid despite repeated requests, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Paksima operated on 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, when he showed up at the hospital May 24, 2000, after being shot in the face and body near his grandmother’s house in South Jamaica.
The suit also charges Paksima treated Jackson in followup visits.
“The gunshot wounds have become part of his folklore. Ironically, he never paid the physician who helped him get on his feet,” said Paksima’s lawyer Christopher Galiardo.
Once the protege of slain rap icon Jam Master Jay, 50 Cent’s debut CD, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’ ” was No. 1 for eight weeks when it was released this year and is already platinum.
On it, he raps about the shooting, saying: “Shell hit my jaw, I ain’t wait for doctor to get it out/Hit my wisdom tooth – hock too! – I spit it out/I don’t smile a lot, cause ain’t nothing pretty/Got a purple heart for war, and I ain’t never left the city.”
Mean streets
In interviews, Jackson has said he peddled crack while growing up in Jamaica and that his mother, who also was a drug dealer, was shot to death in front of him when he was 8 years old.
Galiardo said Paksima has nothing personal against the rapper. In fact, he said he found him “quite likable” but thinks he ought to pay his bill.
Yesterday, Jackson’s lawyer, Mark Gann, did not return a call for comment.
No one was charged in the shooting, but federal investigators recently filed court papers linking a convicted drug dealer to the attack.
The papers claim Kenneth (Supreme) McGriff was angry about a song 50 Cent wrote about him and arranged the shooting as revenge.
Source: New York Daily News