Busta Rhymes has reached a legal settlement with a former assistant who accused him of punching him in the face for using a cell phone while on the job. A judge said Thursday, April 30, that the two sides had struck a settlement in principle and ordered them to finalize the deal by June for court approval.
The terms were not made public. Dashiel Gables filed the assault lawsuit in August, saying the dispute began after his daughter called while he was unloading Rhymes's luggage and he answered by text. Gables said Rhymes shouted, “Stay the f–k off your phone,” then attacked him. He later alleged that after he filed a police report, the rapper made sure nobody else would hire him.
The case had been moving toward resolution for weeks. On Wednesday, April 29, attorneys for both sides told the judge they had settled the matter in private mediation earlier in the month, following a pause in the litigation while mediation proceeded.
The lawsuit grew out of a January 2025 arrest involving the alleged attack in the lobby of Rhymes's luxury Brooklyn high-rise. Police said at the time that the rapper had punched the 50-year-old staffer in the face multiple times and sent him to the hospital, though court records do not show that prosecutors pursued charges over the incident. Rhymes denied the claims and responded with counterclaims accusing Gables of damaging his reputation.
His lawyers called the suit “an attempted shakedown” brought by a “disgruntled” former assistant and wrote that “Smith did not assault or batter Gables.” They also alleged that 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 settlement ends the public fight unless the parties fail to complete the paperwork by June, but the broader record now points in one direction: the assault claim and the defamation counterclaim are on track to disappear before they ever reach a trial.
