Wendy Williams Adds Joe Tacopina to Her Legal Team

TMZ

Wendy Williams has a new legal mind on her side ... 'cause famed attorney Joe Tacopina says he's serving as her personal attorney.

Transcript

00:00So, Wendy's retained you as her personal attorney.

00:06What's the next step?

00:07How do you get on the guardianship case, which is really the end goal here?

00:12The end goal is to get her out of that draconian institution she's in, that she doesn't belong

00:18in because she's not incapacitated in any way, shape, or form.

00:22She's in a ward where people don't know their names, where people don't know between a red

00:26light and a green light.

00:27She's in a place where people are dangerous to themselves.

00:31She's not.

00:32She can't leave there on her own to go get a cup of coffee.

00:34So, the goal, end game, is to make sure she gets out of there.

00:37How it's done is honestly, it doesn't matter to me now.

00:42I spoke to Wendy at length yesterday.

00:45She wants me to represent her.

00:46I am representing her.

00:47Her family's asked me to represent her.

00:49I'm her personal attorney now.

00:51Doesn't mean I'm in the guardianship case yet, and I'm not, because the judge has to

00:55approve any lawyer coming in to the guardianship.

00:59So, the bottom line is there's a process that's in play there.

01:04We are moving.

01:05We're making motions to make sure we're doing everything to get ourselves into the guardianship

01:11proceedings, and then we have other remedies if that doesn't work, if the judge for some

01:17reason doesn't allow us into the guardianship matter, as Wendy's counsel of choice, which

01:22almost sounds ridiculous, but they could try and argue that she doesn't have the wherewithal

01:28of the abilities to pick her own counsel, which is obviously silly.

01:32But if they did, we'd take an interlocutory appeal, or we could go as far as doing something

01:37called an Article 78, which is actually suing the judge in a Supreme Court in New York State.

01:43So, we have things to do, and we'll be doing them.

01:46There are certain rules, once I'm in as a guardian, in the guardianship case, there's

01:52gag orders in place and whatnot, so it'll change my ability to do things that we're

01:55doing right now.

01:56But I don't care about that.

01:57I care about just getting her out of there, and whether it's me or this other law firm

02:00or us as a team, she needs to be out of there.

02:03Every day she spends there is a travesty of justice, and any additional days she spends

02:07there is horrific.

02:09I speak to her almost daily, and she's just, I mean, you look at those videos, it's horrible.

02:16She's fine.

02:17How do you go about getting her out of that facility when the guardianship, I mean, you'd

02:24have to go against the guardianship at this point to, or are you just trying to convince,

02:28is this a negotiation with the guardian to say, look, she clearly doesn't belong in there,

02:34and then you deal with the guardianship itself later?

02:38No, it's all sort of under one umbrella, where the judge basically has to be convinced that

02:42she is not in need of a guardian.

02:45The guardian sort of has to acquiesce, and it should be also supported by medical examinations,

02:51which Wendy has done very well on.

02:54Look, she does not have frontal lobe dementia.

02:56She just doesn't.

02:57That's something that deteriorates over time, does not improve over time.

03:01And from 2024, when she was diagnosed with that, she was under a severe battle of alcoholism,

03:07and she was an alcoholic and is an alcoholic.

03:09She's sober now, but look on that TMZ piece that you guys produced with Harvey doing her

03:15interview.

03:16It was amazing.

03:17She was cognitive.

03:18She was articulate.

03:19She was Wendy.

03:20It's sad that this is happening.

03:21And there's, you know, I quite frankly question the motivations of people in this thing.

03:25But the bottom line is she needs to get out of there, and sooner rather than later.

03:29We have an ability, if the judge is gonna let this happen, there is a mechanism where

03:35she's entitled to a jury trial.

03:37I hope it doesn't get that far.

03:38I hope a judge is going to evaluate her, look at the medical evaluations, listen to her,

03:44and say, okay, she's fine.

03:46She can go.

03:47I mean, this judge actually went as far at one point to say that, you know, one of the

03:50reasons she thought she was incapacitated is because she repeatedly used the word, you

03:55know what I'm saying?

03:56You know what I'm saying?

03:57That phrase.

03:58That's crazy.

03:59That's her.

04:00That's her.

04:01And Harvey did a great thing.

04:02You guys did a great thing on that with your documentary where you showed that Wendy has

04:06been saying that for 15 years on her show.

04:09That's one of her catchphrases, that and how you doing, right?

04:12So that's Wendy's speech mannerisms.

04:15That's not an indicia of mental defect, but that was actually used against her.

04:19So it's, I mean, there is, this is a scary thing.

04:22And a guardianship, when you're held in a facility, is a course of last resort.

04:28It's not meant to put a 62-year-old woman in there, really against her will, who's able

04:35to communicate with her family, with her friends, have a conversation, a conversation at dinner.

04:41It's not meant for that.

04:42It's really a course of last resort where someone is a danger to themselves.

04:46That's not the case here.

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