Law&Crime Sidebar - 10 Gross Allegations in Kanye West's New Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

A former assistant of Kanye West, Lauren Pisciotta, is suing the rapper in Los Angeles court. She claims West, also known as Ye, bombarded her with sexually graphic videos, photos, and text messages. He also allegedly insisted she delete her popular OnlyFans account, promising to pay her $1 million if she did. Pisciotta claims she never saw that money. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the filing with civil attorney Perry Fallick.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Go to www.morganufc.com/law or text LAW to 4-THE-PEOPLE (484-373-6742) for your chance to win two tickets to UFC 303 to see McGregor vs. Chandler!HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Music icon Kanye West and his brand Yeezy have been hit with a bombshell new lawsuit facing 15 new civil claims all from a former assistant, including wrongful and sexual harassment. We're going through the top 10 biggest revelations in the new filing with civil attorney Perry Fallick, who handles sexual harassment cases. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime.

I'm Jesse Weber. Controversial celebrity Kanye West, back in the headlines. And once again, for not good reasons. So this time, he is facing accusations from a former assistant and only, fans model, 35-year-old Lauren Pishota, and she says that she was hired by West in 2021 to work on his Yeezy fashion line and contribute to his Donda album, and at the same time, she was allegedly making around a million dollars a year on the campsite. But she alleges in a lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles that West wanted her to delete her only fans account, and when she did, he started

making sexual advances towards her. And in this bombshell suit, she's suing for 50, teen claims or causes of action. I want to talk about this now, and there is a lot to get into. So let me bring in civil attorney Perry Falik, who handles sexual harassment cases. Perry, very good to have you on here to talk about this. And I was so excited that we were talking about this legal back and forth that you mentioned something to me right before we got on, that this is not a typical sexual harassment case, right? No, despite, and first of all, thanks for having me. Good to be here. And no, I don't think it's your typical sexual harassment case. And I think it's telling that of the 15 causes of action you mentioned, the first cause of action that the plaintiff's attorney lists is breach of an oral contract. And he specifies oral contract. So that's telling for two reasons. First, despite all the very salacious and upsetting sexual harassment allegations that are floating around.

and all the press and in all the articles, and there's plenty more in the complaint if you read through it. And we're going to. We're going to get through all of it. Ultimately, the first cause of action he's bringing is for this $4 million for breach of an oral contract. And it's interesting that that's what he leads with legally. And it's interesting that it's an oral contract, which would say to me that there's no written contract and no type of writing

that would support her argument that she had this agreement with him. So that's where the real money is in this case. Let's table that for a second, the idea of an oral contract and the strength of that. We'll get to that in a second, but we have to lay out some of these allegations on what she's saying. So first and foremost, the defendants in this case, let's talk about that. So Pishota has filed a lawsuit against Kanye West, aka Yeezy LLC, Yeezy Apparel LLC, Yeezy Footwear LLC, Yeezy Construction Inc, and Doe's 1 through 50 inclusive. And the thing about the filing when it talks about the unnamed John and Jane Doe's, it says the true names and capacities of defendants named as Doe 1 through Doe 50 inclusive are presently unknown to plaintiff. Plaintiff will amend this complaint setting forth the true names and capacities of these fictitious defendants when they are ascertained.

Plaintiff is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges that each of the fictitious defendants has participated in the acts alleged in this complaint to have been done by the named defendant. defendants. Now, this is not strange language. We see this a lot in lawsuits. Explain to our viewers why these Jane Doe's and John Doe's are listed this way, why they're not named, and what do you make of the fact that it's not just Kanye West who's being sued here? So to answer the first part of the question is, and I agree with you completely, it's kind of standard language or standard to include in a complaint, whenever you want to CYA to make sure that just in case, you there's anyone that may come up during the course of litigation, during the course of discovery, you'll be able to add them in.

Now, technically, I would say it's not necessary because you could always amend the complaint to add someone in. But basically, he's making the point, the attorney's making the point that there may be additional people involved here, and we may know who they were, but not know their specific names. And as we take discovery and as we figure out that specific names of these people, if we think they're responsible, we may add them specifically. and personally to the complaint as a defendant.

To answer the second part about the company, I mean, her allegations are that not that she was just employed by him individually, that she was working for some of his companies. And I think specifically for the sexual harassment retaliation claims, an employer is liable, you know, for the acts of an employee. So if there comes a situation where Kanye is found to be an employee of one of his companies, the company itself may be liable, specifically in a retaliation claim where if she can prove that she was fired for her complaining

about his unwanted sexual advances, again, it's more just making sure the attorney covers all his bases and has all potentially responsible parties involved named in the lawsuit. Okay. Well, let's talk about what is being alleged here. So the complaint starts by saying the plaintiff has worked in the music industry for approximately 15 years. She has successfully held positions in and as artist management and representation a and our marketing consultant and project management due to a professional success plaintiff had occasions to interact professionally with many artists including without limitation defendant conier west aka yay plaintiff creatively collaborated with defendant on yeezy season one women's fashion line and placed three songs on danda connier's

twenty twenty one album so west allegedly wanted to make pishota his executive assistant slash personal assistant in connection with his business affairs and his personal life, and they agreed on a salary of $1 million a year. And according to Bichata, she was required to be available to him 24-7. Now, the filing states, at all relevant times, Defendant West, was aware that plaintiff maintained a strong social media presence comprised of her Instagram and an only fan's account, the latter of which was run entirely by an independent management company. and he did not have any issue or objection to it.

To the contrary, defendant Kanye West often boasted to his friends and colleagues that plaintiff was an only fan superstar. Okay, seems all good. Except that seemed to change, according to Bishota, because she writes, much later, in and around August 2022, Defendant West stated that he wanted plaintiff to be godlike and asked plaintiff to delete her only fan's account. Defendant West agreed to pay plaintiff $1 million if she did so. In further reliance upon defendant's representations, plaintiff deleted her only fan's internet account, thereby giving up the annual sums generated from such account. West never paid plaintiff as promised. So you talked about, now this is almost just a contract case.

What do you think? Is it straightforward? Because when we talk about an oral contract, we know those are valid, but what do you think? So I think you're never straightforward when you're talking about an oral contract versus a written contract. I think any plaintiff was bringing a breach of contract action would much rather prefer to have a written contract than purely being relying on an oral contract. And I think there's a couple things that are in play here. Statue of limitations, the amount of time that a plaintiff has to bring a lawsuit, seems to be applying here because in California, there's a two-year statute of limitations for breach of an oral contract, two years from the time of breach, which is different than the four years they have for breach of a written contract. And she's claiming that she was hired in July 2021, so a year from that would have been July 22.

Right. So we're right up against the statute of limitations. And from my experience handling these types of cases, a lot of time what's going on behind the scenes before a case is filed is the parties are negotiating or the parties are at least discussing if there's a resolution to be had before you file the case. And in a lot of these cases, a lot of the leverage that plaintiffs bringing sexual harassment lawsuits have a lot of. time is the act of filing the complaint because a lot of defendants in these scenarios are specifically someone like Kanye West who's got a high profile celebrity background they don't want this stuff out there so once so the act of filing the complaint itself and the corresponding press and media is leverage for the plaintiff so I would assume in this situation any lawyer

representing this type of plaintiff would have been discussing with Kanye's attorneys if there could be a resolution but it might have just gotten to the point where time was up for him and he couldn't he couldn't risk the fact of blowing any statute of limitations and he had to file this case one way or the other hey there everybody you know how we talk about morgan and morgan all the time just an incredible partner of ours here on the show and law and crime dan morgan actually a friend of mine no big deal well anyway did you know that morgan and morgan the largest injury law firm in America is also the official law firm partner of the UFC? Yes, the UFC. That's pretty awesome to think about. And honestly, it makes sense because in a way, you got to say that fighting is in

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Let me just focus on this oral contract for a second. So as you and I both went to the law school, we all know, that, you know, you can have an oral contract if there's an offer, if there's an acceptance, if there's consideration, something exchanged a value. The problem, of course, is it's not documented, right? And so how tough is it for her to prove that there was an oral contract and these were the terms, right? Unless it was, I mean, if it was just, again, word of mouth, this was a handshake deal, how tough is it for her to issue, to prove that? So it depends on what there is and what comes out in discovery, but I was reading through the complaint looking for any sign of allegations that she has anything to support this, whether that be through any type of written documentation, a text message and email. It doesn't have to be a, you know, 50 page written contract for this, but any type of supporting documentation that they would put in the complaint. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean they don't have it. Not every single thing, piece of evidence you have has to be alleged in a complaint. But without any type of type of support it becomes that he said she said now during discovery maybe she could bring

forward witnesses and so could he who can verify her claims that yes she told me at the time that Kanye had hired her and offered her a million dollars and the more people she has to support that could support her oral contract but you I would as a lawyer you never want to be solely relying on the testimony of your client versus the testimony of a defendant so I would think And in a lot of cases like this, too, you've seen savvy attorneys hold back evidence and not really disclose everything they have in a complaint and see if maybe the defendant will come out and make some statements and kind of hang themselves in the press a little bit. But it's very difficult to a jury, if you go to a jury and they're judging one person's credibility versus another person's credibility and there's no other evidence to support it, I wouldn't want to be relying on just that to take this kind of case all the way through. and spend the time and money and effort that it takes to try this kind of case. Okay, so we mentioned that this is not just, you know, a contract case.

It's also a sexual harassment case. And this is where it takes a wild, wild turn, and I want to get into it. So let me tell you, this filing includes wildly inappropriate text messages that we just can't show you here. I can't even say half the things. I'll be bleeped throughout all of it. But if it is true, these are definitely not something a boss should be. sending to his assistant. And suffice it to say, Bishota alleges West described sexual fantasies to her via text. The document states, West asked plaintiff to get him honey, which is apparently

a sexual enhancement and performance honey. Defendant required the plaintiff always have this on hand and available and she had to deliver it to defendant in advance of defendant's sexual encounters. He would allegedly share details about his latest sexual conquest as well as ones in the past, including the time he says he had sex with an A-list celebrity who wasn't named in the filing, and then texted, not sure why that thought came to me. And in a bizarre twist, West even allegedly texted Peshota to ask her if she, sorry to say this, thought his penis might be racist. Talk about something I never thought I'd actually say, but again, that's what's been alleged in this lawsuit. You know, Perry, I sometimes say when trying to

assess if allegations in a lawsuit are true. I ask myself, is something just so bizarre? Is it so out there? How can you even make this up? Again, these are allegations, but again, something to think about in terms of this being true, right? Well, I agree with you completely as a general statement. I always like also like to think in these cases that it takes a lot for any plaintiff, any woman or anyone bringing a sexual harassment case to put themselves out there publicly like this And to do so when you would just be completely fabricating the allegations or making stuff up, this kind of seems out of the realm of possibility for me. I'm not saying that in these cases, every single allegation has to be true.

But when there's smoke, there's fire. And I always think in these cases that the plaintiffs should be believed at the beginning. And in terms of the allegations themselves, again, generally these statements, if they're so out there. But here in this complaint, they're not saying they're just statements. they're saying their text messages, photos, and videos, things that they look have. Right, there's not just text. They also list various photos and videos of naked women. Complaint states that there was a 24-second video that defendant filmed of a model

performing oral sex on him. And the video was followed by a text conversation wherein the defendant asked the plaintiff if he should edit the video as he wanted to make sure his penis look big enough. So the fact that, and there was at least one foot. photo that was embedded in this complaint. If you have the text, if you have the videos, if you have the photos, and you can show that it's being sent from West to her, isn't that dead to rights? Isn't that automatically sexual harassment? So there's a standard here and they talk about it in the complaint. The general standard

for sexual harassment is something has to be systematic, severe, and pervasive. And I think at one point the lawyer here confuses pervasive with persuasive. But that's, the standard to bring a sexual harassment case and we see a lot of cases where you're judging as an attorney does it rise to that level i would say based on the allegations in the complaint alone here she meets the standard for sexual harassment potentially gender discrimination as well so i think they have that covered and again i'm assuming that the lawyer is not including every piece of evidence he has in the complaint i'm sure he's holding back additional similar pieces of evidence and probably some more damning stuff that he didn't want to put in the complaint that he may say it for later.

But I would agree. I think just based on the allegations in the complaint alone, it would be tough to argue this was not sexual harassment, specifically from an employer to an employee and the dominant position an employer holds over an employee. Just to follow up on that, are you saying there could be something that's worse that they don't want to release yet as a bargaining chip to settle the case? I would say yes. I think in all of these cases, even after you file a complaint, And again, I don't know if there were negotiations going on behind the scenes, but I do know the statute of limitations was coming up and maybe the lawyer had no choice. But in a lot of these cases, especially if this is an oral contract, if I was a lawyer handling a client like this and I filed this case and I knew all I had was an oral contract I was relying on for the majority of the damages, I would always be open to settlement.

And anything you could do to kind of leverage that within bounds is is fair game, I would say. So there's other strange and unsettling encounters that were listed in this 25-page file. Yeah, there's a lot. There's this one. West asked plaintiff to come to his hotel because defendant said he needed plaintiff to log him into his Netflix account. That seems, you know, whatever on its face. But once plaintiff arrived, defendant admitted that he had plaintiff come to his hotel because he just wanted a hug for his birthday. West asked design assistance at the Easy Gap Office why plaintiff would not want to have sex with him.

Defendant was extremely upset and angry that plaintiff would date or have sex with someone else but not him. And then there's this, according to Bishota, on a private overnight flight to Paris. West locked the both of them in a room on the plane and then, quote, defendant laid down on the bed and asked if he and plaintiff could talk. Plaintiff sat in a chair across from defendant. He pleasureed himself under the covers until he felt. fell asleep. Plaintiff was unable to leave as the door had locked and jammed behind her. Eventually, another employee saw a text from plaintiff and came and let Plaintiff out of the defendant's room.

That's the allegation. And then in September of 2022, Pichota was promoted to chief of staff over all of these companies. And the John and Jane Doe's, we mentioned a few minutes ago. West reportedly told her that she would be getting a $3 million raise, bringing her compensation to $4 million. But Pichota claims that she never saw any of that money. She was reportedly told that she would be getting a lump sum. But every time the wire transfer started, Pishota claims that it was stopped before it was coming through. And about a month later, Pishota was terminated on October 22nd, 2022.

It goes on to state that they offered plaintiff a severance of $3 million, which she accepted. Defendants then reneged on their commitment to pay the severance to plaintiff. Now, before we even get into some of the actual claims here, I'm curious your opinion on what I just laid out. And I will also tell you what the response has been from Kanye West. So Kanye West, through a legal representative, says these are baseless allegations and actually is accused Pishota of coercion, blackmail, and extortion. This is according to the L.A. Times. So walk me through what I just alleged to you from the complaint and also Kanye West's response. So it's interesting. I think in terms of the the allegations, it just kind of got worse and worse and worse. And it all establishes a course of conduct that, again, clearly meets the standard of sexual harassment, systematic and pervasive. And leading up to the masturbation incident, which is kind of their big reveal as they go through the allegations. None of it's good, all of its sexual harassment. From a legal perspective,

Again, it goes back to what I said earlier, for all these types of cases, it becomes an issue of what are the damages, what are the financial damages she suffered as a result of purely of the sexual harassment apart from the contract issues. And in these cases, it hinges on a lot of emotional distress damages and what you can prove at trial. So I think the allegations are all valid if she can prove them, which again, I assume she has all the evidence. she's good in terms of you know proving that claim and then it's interesting because she talks about the salary and the and the four million dollars i'm not clear she was ever paid any money by west it's not clear whether she was ever paid that initial million dollars it's not clear from the complaint whether she was ever paid the million dollars uh for allegedly giving up her only fans and then it's it's pretty clear she was never paid this last three million dollars so that's

five million dollars to me which i'm a little confused by because the complaint keeps referencing $4 million. It seems like there are at least $5 million that she alleges she should have been paid that she was never paid. So that's, again, the gist of the case. And again, it was interesting telling to me that the plaintiff included this extortion claim, speaking about Kanye's response, they threw in in one kind of throwaway sentence that none of this was extortion, you know, I'm paraphrasing what they said, but basically said she was just trying to get paid for the work she did. She was never trying to extort him. They must have knew this was coming and knew this was his response either during negotiations or outside of the lawsuit that

Kanye was claiming that she was trying to extort him. And they were throwing it in there as kind of a lead to say, hey, we didn't extort him. And then Kanye swoops in right away the next day and says she's just been extorting me. These are baseless. I'm going to file a counterclaim against her. I think he even says in the response that she was sending him pitch unsolicited maybe nude photos in exchange for trying to get more money and more luxury goods from him. So it's not as simple and it never is. There's always, you know, I say there's three sides of this story. It is her side, his side, and then there's somewhere there's going to be the truth in there. But that seemed like she was anticipating what his response would be. I assume that's because they had prior conversations

and she knew that was coming. Well, she is suing him under 15 causes of action, 15 claims. I mentioned one was breach of contract. There's another one for wrongful termination. There's another one for sexual harassment and hostile work environment. There's another one for unlawful retaliation. This is in violation of the California Labor Code. Some of these that she claims are violations of the Fair Employment and Housing Act. There's another one for gender discrimination and failure to prevent discrimination, harassment, or retaliation on the part of the companies. So first, let me just start off before going a little bit more specific. A lot of these feel like they overlap.

Were you surprised at what some of these are? Are some of them stronger than others? Why are there so many? Walk me through the 15 causes of action. I mean, if you think any of them are particularly strong or maybe some are duplicative. Yeah, I wasn't surprised. I've seen a lot of lawyers who, again, similar to including the doze and the complaint, like to throw in the kitchen sink and just kind of make sure that.

They're including all potentially relevant causes of action, but I agree a lot of them are duplicative. And the key is here you can't recover multiple times for the same wrongful conduct. So if he breached the contract and she's entitled to $4 million, she can get that for the breach of contract. She can't also get another $4 million or additional damages for wrongful termination, which as a cause of action in New York, I don't even think there is such a claim. She's an at-will employee here. She clearly has no type of employment contract. So I don't even think that's a valid claim. I think, again, that's him, the lawyer, throwing in something in addition to breach of oral contract just to kind of make sure he's covering everything.

Anything that's duplicative would be ultimately dealt with in motion practice where the defendant, you know, in a lot of these cases, the defendant will file a motion to dismiss. And that's the claim that a lot of these cases are a lot of these causes of action are duplicative. And their goal is to try to narrow the complaint down to whatever relevant causes of action there are. So I wasn't surprised that he included them, but I agree most of them are irrelevant. And most attorneys in these situations also lead with their strongest causes of action. And it kind of goes in reverse order. So again, telling to me that breach of oral contract is his first cause of action, that's where the real damages are. And then it goes into the sexual harassment and retaliation.

That's what this case is. Everything else, all the other causes of action while that may be interesting. I don't want to say they're completely irrelevant, but they are basically irrelevant. relevant in this in this action and some of them are very specific like one is about that she was entitled to be reimbursed for her her business expenses another one is waiting time penalty she was waiting to get paid never got paid another one was fraud she was falsely promised payment never another one is something i you know again go back to law school quantum merriot that is basically you know a legal remedy to compensate someone um to provide them you know restitution if someone was

unjustly enriched so if she was doing work on someone's benefit and never negate paid um then uh you know i and i think they actually included quantum merit and an unjust enrichment which are basically the same thing and they made a separate cost of action right and you know we're getting into the weeds because we're lawyers we like this stuff but but you know i i have to say with the you kind of the thoriness maybe with the oral contract and all that it's the gender discrimination the retaliation um the i would even say intentional infliction of emotional distress which is kind of a broad claim, but we see it in a lot of kind of lawsuits. Those feel to me, particularly if she has the tax messages and she's going to say she was exposed to

this as Kanye West's employee, I don't know how you defend that if you're Kanye West. And I agree completely, and I go back to what I said earlier, I don't think they're defensible. It just comes down to what's the remedy. What are the damages she suffered as a result of that? And her testimony alone enough about the emotional distress and the damage she's suffered as a result of these actions, this sexual harassment. And again, we're all talking about the same type of conduct is valid. And that's enough in a court of law to get her damages. But the court has different levels of damages in these type of situations.

And that would basically fall under what they call like a garden variety sexual harassment. And there's precedent. There's case law out there that says this is approximately what you're. we're entitled to for that. Now, if she comes out and again, this isn't something she would have to allege in the complaint, but if she's getting treatment, psychological or psychiatric treatment as a result of this, that may potentially elevate her damages to the next level of damages. But in the end, while I agree they're not defensible and she's entitled to some level of damages, the damages she would be entitled to pales in comparison to the $4 or $5 million she's talking about

and the breach of contract action. So it's valid. The breach of contract has to be litigated so we could see if it's valid. I think on its face, the sexual harassment and all the corresponding allegations are valid. But when you bring a civil lawsuit like this, the only remedy you're really looking for is money damages. And in this case, and based on these facts, that comes with the breach of contract. And while she's entitled to the sexual harassment damages, it's going to be very different numbers that we're talking about. And look, so, you know, Kanye West's team says that they're going to, you know, fight this.

They're going to file maybe a counterclaim. We'll see. We'll see if they end up fighting this. We'll see if they end up settling this. It's just another disturbing account, disturbing allegations surrounding Kanye West. And it is a fascinating lawsuit. But Perry Falik, you broke it down for us. You made sense of it.

Love having yawn. Good to see you. And thank you so much for taking the time, sir. Thank you very much. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Spotify.