Law&Crime Sidebar - 10 Wildest Claims in Kanye West Sexual Harassment, Copyright Lawsuits

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Embattled rapper Kanye West is facing more accusations of misconduct in two brand new lawsuits. One accuses Ye of screaming antisemitic tirades at his staff and performing sex acts in front of them. The other claims Ye blatantly stole part of another artist’s song as an unapproved sample. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the two major court filings.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest 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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry 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. Kanye West, certainly no stranger to controversy, has just been hit with two major lawsuits. One that says he's subjected an employee to anti-Semitic rhetoric and sexual episodes. and the other that says he illegally copied and sampled a rap group's music for his own song. We're going to break both lawsuits down for you right now. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Well, the hits keep on coming for rapper Kanye West, or Yay, because he is now facing two new lawsuits that we want to break down for you, and one in particular is just so disturbing. It is so weird. Maybe I'm not surprised because the last time we covered a discrimination and harassment lawsuit against him. This is from a former employee. That guy, that plaintiff, claimed that Kanye West had said at one point, Hitler was great and had forced him to watch the 2022 Batman film and complete silence in a hotel room. So that's the kind of weird stuff we're dealing with, these kind of weird allegations.

But let's talk about these latest legal actions. I'm going to start with lawsuit number one. So this was filed by a man named Murphy aficionado in California State Court. And apparently, he says he used to work for Kanye West, and he is now suing him for a number of claims, including discrimination, harassment, labor code violations, and breach of contract. So we want to get into it. And when I say disturbing, remember when I said disturbing, I just want to read you the opening paragraph from this lawsuit. page one during aficionado's employment yay this is kanya west yay yay's anti-semitic tirades and conspiracies were a daily occurrence

often these outbursts involved how jews controlled the kardashians other times yay recounted how jews were going after him and his money those very same days yay would incessantly yell at his staff including aficionado that is just the start of this lawsuit And by the way, these allegations are really not a far cry from arguably very anti-Semitic statements that West has made in the past few years and other allegations of anti-Semitism that have been against him. I mean, you remember when Kanye West tweeted to his tens of millions of followers, I'm a bit sleepy tonight, but when I wake up, I'm going, deaf. I think he meant DefCon, but DeathCon 3 on Jewish people. And I mentioned the prior lawsuit, this. a lot of this seems to be consistent.

These are allegations. These are allegations. He's not been found liable, right? But it's just disturbing stuff and a pattern of, again, disturbing allegations. As we're sorting through these legal filings, these lawsuits, let me talk to you about an expert in this field, okay? Our sponsor, Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm. Look, here's the deal. If you're injured, you have to know what your legal rights are and whether you can be compensated.

Morgan and Morgan has a dedicated team of over 1,000 attorneys, case specialists, paralegals, investigators. They have an incredible track record, recent verdicts, $12 million in Florida, $26 million in Philadelphia, $6.8 million in New York. There's no upfront fee. They only get paid if you get paid. The whole process can be done right from your smartphone. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar. But now I want to break down this lawsuit. And by the way, this lawsuit is not only against Kanye West, but it is also against Yeezy, his company, but also Donda Academy. This is an unaccredited Christian school that was founded by Kanye West in California.

That was the subject of that previous lawsuit that we covered, I think back in April, actually. And by the way, in that lawsuit, that was filed by a former employee at Donda, who says he was wrongfully terminated by Kanye West. So going to this one, the reason Oficionado is suing all of them is because he claims all defendants compelled, coerced, aided, and or abetted the discrimination, retaliation, and harassment alleged in this complaint. And by the way, you also sue entities like that because sometimes that's where the money is. Yes, Kanye West is quite wealthy, but you go after the entities because that's where some of the real money can be. But now let's talk about the plaintiff here, 35-year-old of Mr. Murphy aficionado.

So he says that he worked as a project manager for Yeezy and Kanye West for a nine-month span beginning in October of 2022. He says he was to be paid $125 per hour. And he explains, I was a great employee. I was always on call. I worked 50 to 70 hours a week. I even slept at the office to finish assignments. The problem is, he says, despite all of this, he wasn't paid. he wasn't paid from October to March

2023. And he claims that Kanye West even acknowledged that he wasn't getting paid because embedded in this lawsuit, in this complaint, is a text message puratively from Kanye West to Mr. Efficionado. And it reads, also, you're working for free. I need to pay you for your time. But again, according to the plaintiff here, apparently that didn't happen.

So now we move on to the anti-Semitic allegations that Oficionado claims. Ye would frequently make disparaging remarks about Jewish people. The Jews are out to get me. They froze my bank account. The Jews got Kim and my kids, obviously referring to his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.

And the complaint goes on to say that officiato, who was confused, asked, what do you mean by that? Yay, aggressively responded, what do you mean? What do I mean by that? The Jews convinced Kim. She has Jewish masters.

Now, if you thought that that was going to be the most salacious aspect of this lawsuit, oh, you would be very wrong. Why? Let me tell you about this other alleged encounter in this complaint. So, aficionado claims that in November of 2022, Kanye West summons him to his hotel room at the Beverly Hills Waldorf Astoria for a work meeting. And when he shows up, Kanye West opens the door. And first, he claims that a lawyer for conservative news commentator, Candice Owens, walks out. And by the way, Candice Owens has expressed her own commentary on Jewish people. And I believe she interviewed Kanye West at one point. So if this allegation is true, maybe not surprising, but kind of strange nonetheless. Anyway, he goes on to say after this

lawyer walks out, West, again, opens the door. He is allegedly shirtless. He is out of breath. and his pants are unbuttoned. And then what does aficionado say he sees? Wes' girlfriend, Bianca Sensori, just standing in that room, toppless. Her hands barely covering her up. So, Fisianado concludes, okay, these two were just having sex before I walked in.

Now, officiano says he was uncomfortable, and he says what he tried to do is go to the lobby. But according to him, Wes said, no, no, no, no. He insists that he come in, take a seat. Now, in front of aficionado, West allegedly refers to that Owen's lawyer that I mentioned as a, quote, Jewish spy exposes Sensori's breast to aficionado, and then he claims that West says to him, wait right here, do not leave. Kanye West goes into the other room where Sensori is in, and according to Officianado, he hears what sounds like West and Sensori having

sex. Again, just a big picture here. This is all allegedly in front of West's employee, okay? So now the reason aficionado says that he didn't leave, right? Why didn't he just pick up and leave? Is because he claims he was scared. He was scared of Kanye West. He was scared of his anger, his aggression. And he says he was in fear of retaliation from, quote, one of the most famous, powerful and erratic artists in the world. By the way, he claims that 10 minutes later, Kanye West comes back out of that room, acting like nothing happens. And what is he wearing? A t-shirt with a swastika. And he even asked aficionado, don't you like my shirt? And aficionado is uncomfortable and replies, it is definitely unique. Oh, and by the way, sorry,

I almost forgot this. He claims that after all this, Kanye West then shows him nude pictures of Kim Kardashian on his phone. By the way, I think I said this the last time I covered a Kanye West lawsuit, but look, this applies in every lawsuit, every criminal case. Credibility is key. Of course, can you prove these allegations? But you got to also wonder, are the claims so outrageous that you think to yourself, how could someone make this up? Right. If this goes to a trial and aficionado takes the stand and he tells a jury this, you think the jury's going to say, is he making this up? How could you make something like this? up. And also, by the way, that wasn't even the only alleged bizarre hotel encounter in this

lawsuit. Because aficionado claims that later that week, Kanye West summons him back to that hotel room. Except this time, he's greeted by Kanye West and an unnamed NFL wide receiver, and they're wearing only towels around their waists. And he says, while he's there, both West and this NFL player take turns going into a separate room with a masseuse, but essentially his description of what he hears happening in that other room is not really a massage session, but rather a sex session. Okay. So moving on from that, now we want to get into how this relationship terminated officinado being

fired. So officinado says that in late February 2023, Kanye West had tasked him with relocating Donda Academy to a new campus. And officiato claims that when he explained to the rapper, that, you know, of course, this would require permits, this would require time, West became irate. And he yelled that he would not accept waiting. He would not accept permits. He wanted this done immediately. And he also says that at another time, Kanye West made fun of him, made fun of his traditional Filipino tattoos, calling them ugly and that they should be removed. And he says he was ultimately terminated. Although to be

clear from the copy of the complaint that we received, it appears that several pages may have been missing, so not entirely clear on what happened, and particularly what might have led to the termination. But what we do know is that aficionado is suing for several different causes of action. First, there is a discrimination cause of action, and officiano claims that his race, color, ancestry, national origin, and other characteristics that are protected under California law were, quote, substantially motivating reasons in defendant's decision to fire him, and that the defendants engaged in retaliation against him, too. He says he suffered humiliation, emotional distress, physical and mental pain, and anguish

as a result of what he alleges to be intentional misconduct. And by the way, you need to show that harm element. What did you suffer? What are you suffering in order to justify damages and other kinds of relief in a lawsuit? And by the way, we see this in the other causes of action that are listed in this complaint, too. But officianto is also suing under a hostile work environment harassment cause of action. And important to note there, officianto claims that under the law, a single incident of harassing conduct is sufficient to create a hostile work environment if the harassing conduct has unreasonably interfered with plaintiff's work performance or created an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment. Going back to the allegations that I laid out, just think about that.

He's also suing under a few retaliation causes of action, wrongful termination, a cause of action that the business defendants failed to stop or prevent discrimination. He is also alleging violations of the labor code because he says he was retaliated against for exposing bad working conditions and he wasn't paid, including for overtime. He's also suing for breach of an oral contract to be paid. And the final claim is intentional infliction of emotional distress, which can be a very broad claim, can cover a lot of different behavior. You just have to show that the discrimination was extreme. It was outrageous, that the discrimination and termination were done with malice, fraud, oppression. And that is quite the lawsuit. That is quite the lawsuit.

But as I mentioned, that is not the only one that has been recently filed against Kanye West. There is another one we got to talk about. So this one, a little less salacious. This one was filed in Tennessee federal court. Why federal? Because it is a copyright infringement lawsuit. Now, this one's interesting. but I'll give you a quick primer on copyright law.

Two seconds. So copyright is about protecting the exclusive rights that authors have in their creative works, songs, art, music compositions, books, movies, TV shows, even computer code. And the copyright owner is the only one who can distribute, produce, perform, display, license, make derivative works of those products. And that's the key there. That's why it's so important to have a copyright, to get a copyright registration, So with that in mind, let's get into this.

So we have a group of Memphis rappers, Vanda Watkins, aka Criminal Mame, Hayward Ivy, aka DJ Squeaky, and Raina B. Rufus, who is acting as the executor of the estate of Gerald Berry, aka Kylo G. They are suing Kanye West and also rapper Ty Dala sign, real name Tyrone William Griffin, as well as Yeezy Record label and other music companies for copyright infringement. So I want to read you the introductory paragraph. It says, this matter involves the deliberate theft of plaintiff's music by a world-renowned musician. Approximately February 9th, 2024, defendants commercially released a new musical album entitled Vultures 1, containing a song titled, I'm just going to call it FS.

I can't repeat the title here, FS, riddled with numerous unlicensed samples of plaintiff's copyrighted music amounting to blatant copyright infringement. In fact, these acts of copyright infringement are so brazen, yet easily discernible, that plaintiffs' actual vocals and music can be identified in the beginning of defendants' F.S. Plaintiffs have never given permission to defendants for such use of their music. Plaintiffs have never been compensated nor credited in any form by defendants for such use of their copyrighted music. Defendants continue to profit from their clear acts of copyright infringement in the form

of music royalties from well over 150 million. streams generated by digital music service providers to date. After numerous unsuccessful attempts at resolving this matter directly with the responding party, or the responsible parties, rather, plaintiffs have been left with no other method of recourse than to bring this cause of action for damages and injunctive relief. By the way, if that is true, you know, so many of the lawsuits that we see in the copyright field are, does this sound like this? You know, what is the substantial similarity between here?

Is there substantial similarity? But if you're taking directly, easily discernible music compositions, if it's easy to see, or here I should say, that's a different kind of case. So going into this, this lawsuit revolves around the song, Drink a Yak Part 2, which this group indicates his own jointly by themselves, the Memphis rappers. And they indicate that samples of that were improperly used. Now, this is key. They explain that this song is easily available on a number of different platforms and has been for years. Why is that important? Because in order to prove copyright infringement, access is a key element. That, for example, here, West, he had the ability to hear this music and copy it.

Quote, based on information and belief, defendants directly access plaintiffs drink a yak part two through online digital music service providers. Based on information and belief, it is through this direct access. The defendants were able to download and or extract plaintiffs drink a yak part two and then incorporate an interpolate components of it into the infringing FS, all without obtaining permission or consent from plaintiffs. Now, from there, these Memphis rappers say that West's song was released. They were able to easily identify their vocal and compositional contributions within the song. I mean, they even get specific. Plaintiffs, Kylo G's vocals from Drink of Yack Part 2 can also be easily identified in FS. Specifically, stop off at the liquor store, get your yak, then we headed for

the Indo. And this is at four to six second time stamps. And then again, the 11 to 14 time stance. So again, really, really specific. So the fact if they can prove that that happened, shows Kanye West and Tai Dala sign knew, you know what, we are taking something from somebody else. Now, I'm not going to get into the specifics of the percentages and who owns what, gets a little dense there. But apparently, according to this lawsuit, the plaintiff's lawyers found out that Kanye West had just fired his entire legal business teams. So, negotiation stopped. Then they get word that Kanye West hired a new lawyer.

But guess what happens? Apparently, West fires that lawyer as well. And so negotiation stalled again. And they say, look, we have been trying to resolve this. But the defendants have purposefully neglected trying to figure this out. And they have just continued to use their work, their copyrighted work, without permission, and been profiting off of it and so forth. So they are suing for copyright infringement. They say, we have a copyright registration for the sound record.

recording and the musical composition for Drink a Yak part two. You actually need a copyright registration to file a federal lawsuit. And again, the defendant had access to Drink a Yak because it was commercially released for everyone to hear. They allege that the defendant's song contained identical elements of Drink a Yak, that this is deprived the plaintiffs, these Memphis rappers of compensation, that they never gave their permission. And they say they are entitled to actual damages, meaning what would compensate them,

what would return them to whole, but also they're entitled to their losses and the defendant's profits. Now, they say in the alternative, what they're also entitled to, in an alternative sense, is statutory damages, meaning damages by law that amount to, get this, $150,000 per willful violation. And just so you know, that could rack up to the millions. And they also want a judgment from the court declaring that the defendants do not have rights to use the plaintiff's works without permission. And they're also asking for an injunction to further stop the defendants from using their works.

So in the end, two more lawsuits, two more legal headaches for Kanye West. We'll see what happens next. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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