DJ Envy has for months now been associated in the public eye with a scandal involving his former business partner, alleged real estate scammer Cesar Pina — a scandal that has gotten Pina arrested by (and Envy’s workplace reportedly visited by) federal law enforcement.
But Envy had been getting warnings from the beginning about Pina from a surprising person — Joe Budden.
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This week, old clips from both Envy and Budden surfaced on social media and show Budden warning his former Desert Storm compatriot that Pina’s real estate plans sounded like a “scam.”
The first, from an October 2021 episode of Maino’s Kitchen Talk podcast, shows Envy recounting reaching out to three Hip Hop figures (Budden, Fabolous, and DJ Clue) about his real estate plans.
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“I said, ‘Hey guys. I’m doing real estate. This is something that I think you should invest a little bit of money in, try it out. That way you can do it,'” Envy remembered. “Joe Budden told me it was a Ponzi scheme, and I was going to go to jail.”
Pina’s alleged scheme has indeed been described as “Ponzi-like” in press reports and by the federal government.
A second clip, from a June 2023 episode of The Joe Budden Podcast has Budden recounting his memory of that conversation.
He recalled that at the time of the conversation, he and Envy were not speaking “at all, about anything.”
“And he calls me, and starts talking about some real estate shit,” Budden said. “For me, that’s odd. We don’t speak. And now you’re calling me, telling me that your man’s with the government and he could get the buildings.
“And there’s a list and it’ll be me, you, and Queen Latifah — whatever the fuck he was saying, because…I stopped listening at this point. But that just sounded fishy.”
DJ Envy is not charged with any crimes in the federal case against Pina, though he is referred to in the complaint (albeit not by name, only as “Individual-1”).
“Pina and his business partner, a well-known disc jockey and radio personality (‘Individual-1’), operated a company that conducted real estate seminars around the country,” it reads. “Together, they used Individual-l’s celebrity to promote various real estate enterprises that Pina controlled.”
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Envy has denied any wrongdoing, and Pina has claimed that promotional materials listing Envy as a cofounder of Pina’s company were done without the DJ’s knowledge.
