Earlier this year, a video surfaced in which Kanye West told a person to stop filming him. They refused, so West took their phone and threw it. There was a police investigation over the incident, which ended with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office saying that West wouldn’t face any charges. The story didn’t end there, though, as West is now being sued.
As Billboard reports, photographer Nichol Lechmanik has filed a lawsuit against West, accusing the rapper of assault, battery, negligence, and interference with the exercise of her civil rights. The complaint was filed in California Superior Court in Ventura County on May 31. In the suit, Lechmanik claims the incident caused her “great mental and emotional pain and suffering” and that she “anticipates incurring medical and related expenses.”
The suit says that Lechmanik was driving her car and filming Kim Kardashian as she exited Sports Academy in Newbury Park, California. At the time, she noticed West was “angrily confronting” a photographer on the street. The complaint noted, “Given Defendant Ye’s reputation for violence against photographers, his history of physically harming them, and based on his threatening body language, Plaintiff became fearful for the photographer’s safety.”
Then, West apparently approached Lechmanik’s car and “aggressively” said, “You all ain’t gonna run up on me like that.” When Lechmanik denied she was, West allegedly became “enraged,” “ripped her phone out of her hands,” and threw it “onto the street towards oncoming traffic.”
Lechmanik is requesting general and special damages, punitive and exemplary damages, civil penalties, and costs of the suit. She also wants an order enjoining West and “all persons acting in concert with him or acting on his behalf, from touching, striking, annoying, contacting, molesting, attacking, threatening, or otherwise interfering with […] the Plaintiff, and all persons similarly situated, to pursue the occupation of photographer.”
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