Paparazzo RJ Capak will be in court Monday to face Rory Smith, the hulking bodyguard for rapper 2 Chainz[1] for the first time since Smith knocked him out in Rockefeller Center[2].
Capak was waiting outside NBC Studios on Oct. 27, 2017, with his video camera, waiting to shoot Rose McGowan[3], when the Atlanta hip-hop artist arrived to appear on the “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
“I’d heard of him. I figured, ‘The guy’s right here. Let me get him.’ He had this little lap dog on a leash,” Capak told me.
After snapping shots of 2 Chainz and his bodyguard (who’s a cousin) — described as 6 feet tall and 300 pounds — walking into the building, Capak went inside the lobby to get more footage.
“I’m looking into the little viewfinder screen. I never saw it coming,” Capak said. “The last frame of my video shows my feet going up in the air.”
The shutterbug was unconscious for a few seconds, he said. “When I came to, I didn’t know what had happened. I’ve never been hit before. My legs were all wobbly.”
After Capak went to Bellevue Hospital in an ambulance, Smith was charged with misdemeanor assault.
Capak’s lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, said, “That knockout punch could cost Rory Smith some time in jail.”
A conviction would help Capak’s civil suit against Smith and 2 Chainz. The photographer claims he has lost work and suffered permanent damage from the haymaker.
“My equilibrium is off. It’s compromised me,” he said. “I want this guy punished.”