Boosie Badazz is taking his refund fight to arbitration after paying JM Burkman & Associates $600,000 for a Trump pardon bid that did not succeed. He is seeking $300,000 back from the Washington DC lobbyists.
The dispute turns on whether the fee carried any promise of a partial return if no pardon materialized. JM Burkman & Associates says, in a statement reported by Notus in the fee dispute, that there was "no provision to return half the fee was ever actually agreed to".
Boosie Badazz and JM Burkman & Associates
Boosie Badazz paid the firm in 2025 to advance a push for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. The money was meant to secure relief tied to a federal gun conviction that the rapper, whose legal name is Torence Hatch, was trying to remove from his record.
Hatch’s case traces back to a conviction tied to possessing a loaded weapon at a music video shooting in 2023. Under a plea deal, he was sentenced to three years of supervised release, 300 hours of community service and a $50,000 fine.
White House and Trump pardon bid
The push ran into a direct contradiction. The lobbyists told Hatch’s attorneys that Trump had signed the pardon and that they were waiting for the White House to announce it. The White House told Hatch’s attorney that it had not received such a request.
That left the pardon effort without the result Boosie Badazz paid for. The current fight now centers on whether the firm must return half of the upfront fee, a question arbitration will decide under the contract terms the two sides are disputing.
Washington DC fee dispute
The size of the payment and the requested refund are clear: $600,000 in 2025, with $300,000 now at issue. For Hatch, the practical next step is arbitration, where the issue is not whether the pardon was granted — it was not — but whether the fee agreement required a partial return when it was not.
