Kanye West Sued For Throwing Photographer’s Phone Into Street
Kanye West is being sued by a photographer after the rapper threw her phone into the street during an encounter earlier this year.
Photographer Nichol Lechmanik filed a lawsuit against West for assault, battery, and negligence this week.
The incident took place in January when West realized several photographers were following him after he and his new wife Bianca Censori attended his daughter’s basketball game in California.
According to the lawsuit obtained by TMZ, Lechmanik alleges that West was confronting another photographer and was going through the man’s pockets.
However, she then claims West turned his attention to Lechmanik and approached her as she sat in her car.
In footage of the encounter filmed by Lechmanik’s business partner who was in passenger seat of her car, West approaches the photographer and tells her: “You didn’t have to run up on me like that. If I say stop, stop with your cameras.”
In the clip, West then grabs Lechmanik’s cell phone from her hand and throws the device into the street. The photographer claims the phone landed into oncoming traffic.
‘Traumatized and Humiliated’
In the lawsuit, Lechmanik claims the encounter has left her traumatized and humiliated, and that she lost earnings as she was unable to return to her occupation of photographing celebrities.
She is also seeking an injunction blocking Kanye from “touching, annoying or threatening not just herself, but any photographer.”
Lechmanik filed a report at the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department in California on the day of the January incident and deputies were called to the scene around 16:30. West was initially named a suspect in a battery investigation into the incident, but was never charged.
According to TMZ, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office revealed that the cellphone had only suffered “minor damage” to its $30 protective case and Lechmanik had decided not to press charges at the time.
This is not the first time West has found himself in legal trouble with a photographer. In December, photographer Katelyn Mooney was reportedly left unable to pay rent after West failed to pay her $110,000 for a last-minute photo shoot.
Mooney is now suing West’s Yeezy Inc after the rapper allegedly only paid the Brooklyn-based photographer $15,000 — instead of the $110,00 he owed for the photo shoot.
Image credits: Featured photo via Wikimedia Commons.
