Faith Evans was ordered on Tuesday, Oct. 27, to immediately distribute nearly $14 million from The Notorious B.I.G.’s estate to the trust set up by Voletta Wallace. The ruling moves money tied to estate earnings from February to December 2025 into the trust that will ultimately benefit the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation.
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick said the trust’s financial stake began earlier than December 2025, and that the $12.5 million set aside inside the estate must be paid out with interest. Jay Freiberg said the distributions with interest will total nearly $14 million, giving the trust a faster path to cash that had already been parked inside the estate.
Kathaleen McCormick’s ruling
McCormick wrote that “All economic rights associated with Ms. Wallace’s member interest in the LLC transferred to her estate upon her death on February 21, 2025” and that “The Trust, as the ultimate beneficiary, is entitled to distributions accrued as of the date of Ms. Wallace’s death.” That finding is the legal pivot: the money was not treated as a later entitlement that could wait until December, but as a right that started at the moment of her death.
The order landed after Wayne Barrow, who was named Voletta Wallace’s legal trustee upon her death in February 2025, pursued litigation last July over the estate profits. Barrow said the trust was owed a 25% share of earnings, including profits from a Primary Wave catalog deal, while Evans argued he did not have the right legal documentation to claim the money.
Barrow’s $14 million path
By August, a judge in Delaware’s Chancery Court had sided with Barrow, setting up the later ruling that turned the dispute into a payment order rather than another round of arguments over entitlement. Evans, Biggie’s widow and the sole manager of his intellectual property portfolio after Voletta Wallace’s death, now has to move the funds out of the estate immediately.
Barrow will then donate the money to the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation under the terms of Voletta Wallace’s will. Jay Freiberg said, “We are pleased with the latest order from the Chancellor,” and added, “It continues the Chancellor’s decisions recognizing Faith Evans’ misbehavior regarding Notorious Big LLC after the death of Mama Wallace.”
CJ Wallace and Barrow
The ruling also lands while CJ Wallace is suing Barrow in Pennsylvania to change Voletta Wallace’s will, which had previously named CJ Wallace and Barrow co-trustees before it was changed a few weeks before her death to give Barrow sole control. CJ Wallace alleges that Barrow manipulated Voletta Wallace into rewriting the will on her deathbed, and Barrow says that lawsuit is being engineered by Evans.
Evans’ lawyers deny that claim, and the estate fight is still active even after this payment order. For now, the practical result is simple: the trust gets the money, the estate loses the ability to hold it any longer, and the next dispute shifts to the separate will case rather than the profit share that McCormick has already ordered paid.
