A man who says he was injured while working on Kanye West’s $57 million beachfront Malibu estate – and was allegedly fired for refusing to run carbon monoxide emitting generators indoors – is demanding $1.7 million in damages from the artist now known as Ye.
Plaintiff Tony Saxon sat in a Los Angeles courtroom Monday as his attorney Ron Zambrano disclosed the amount sought for the first time during the two-week civil trial. If the jury concludes that Ye acted with intent, significant punitive damages could also be awarded.
In contradictory closing arguments, Zambrano and Ye’s attorney, Andrew Cherkasky, offered opposing interpretations of the evidence. Zambrano said Saxon, 35, was clearly hired as an employee and provided thousands of pages of documentation to support his case. Ye’s legal team submitted only 19 pages, Zambrano said.
Transparency against lies
“He kept things that made him look bad and presented them to you anyway,” Zambrano said of his client. “Mr. Saxon was transparent with you in all aspects. He was victimized and he was hurt.”
Saxon’s filings also included 94 pages of text messages that Saxon exchanged with Ye during his seven weeks as demolition supervisor and safety officer at the beach property, according to Zambrano. The house was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Ye bought it in 2021 and had it stripped of plumbing, toilets, fixtures, cabinets, electricity, a Jacuzzi and a concrete fireplace with two custom-made, 30-foot-tall stainless steel chimneys, according to jury testimony. (Ye later sold the house in September 2024 for $21 million – a bitter loss.)
In his plea, Cherkasky described Saxon as a liar who voluntarily and “had a lot of fun” staying in Ye’s “castle on the beach” until Ye released him. Saxon later made up the story about an injury and unpaid wages to collect undeserved money, the lawyer claimed. “The lies are so deep and so vile that not a single word that came out of his mouth can be believed,” Cherkasky said, calling Saxon a “professional victim.”
Ye on the witness stand
Cherkasky also praised Ye for showing up on time Friday and taking the stand. As ROLLING STONE previously reported, Ye struggled to keep his eyes open. “He answered the questions. He didn’t sleep. And he was bored. This is beneath him,” Cherkasky said Monday.
The lawyer also criticized Saxon’s camp for pressuring Ye’s wife, Bianca Censori, on the witness stand Thursday over the fact that she signed some documents on Ye’s behalf in the trial. She told the jury she had a “POA,” which apparently meant a power of attorney.
“A wife signing something is not fraud, not questionable, not ‘guardianship’ in the slightest,” Cherkasky argued. “It’s simply the personal touch that a wife can show to her superstar husband.”
Censori as a witness
Censori, who also worked on the Ando House, told jurors that Ye had an aversion to stairs and windows, preferring instead “ramps and slides,” and that he wanted to try “mesh as a divider between inside and outside.” She also claimed that Saxon represented to her that he was a licensed contractor. Saxon denies this.
In his closing argument, Zambrano responded that Ye hardly deserved a “participation award” for his three hours on the witness stand. “Who was here the rest of the time? You,” Zambrano told the seven-member jury of women and five men.
In his closing argument, Zambrano focused primarily on the claim that Ye had the Ando house gutted without a building permit and that he did not hire Saxon as a licensed contractor, but rather to keep the project discreet. He pointed to a message from Censori in a group chat that said: “No approval increases caution.”
Back injury and dismissal
Zambrano said Ye fired Saxon after he injured his back and began asking questions. Ye and Censori, who said she was working as an architectural manager at Yeezy at the time, knew that Saxon was injured, the lawyer said – and referred to other text messages.
“I hurt my back and am resting right now,” Saxon wrote in a message to Ye that was shown on a screen in the courtroom. “My back is so fucked up,” Saxon wrote in a separate message to Censori. In other messages, Saxon asked if he could see a chiropractor who regularly visited Ye’s office in a Los Angeles warehouse. In a thread to Censori, he wrote, “I can’t live here anymore,” and asked that Ye hire new security guards.
Zambrano said Saxon was a vintage record dealer and musician who introduced himself to Ye as a “guy with a van” – not a professional contractor. “Tony is not a general contractor. He never was. Everyone knew that,” Zambrano argued. He said Ye failed to obtain workers’ compensation insurance on the Ando home and was therefore responsible for Saxon’s past and future damages.
Cash flows and control
According to Zambrano, the $240,000 Saxon received from Ye was used to pay workers and purchase materials. Accordingly, when Saxon was fired, only $65,315 remained in his accounts. The attorney also highlighted a note in bank documents in which Ye’s accountant identified a $120,000 wire transfer to Saxon dated October 15, 2021 as “Ando Project Management.” Zambrano also stated that Ye contacted Saxon via text message in a manner that controlled him as an employee.
“He’s looking for updates as a homeowner, as someone who hired a contractor,” Cherkasky responded. “The passion for the result [des eigenen Hauses] is not an invitation to make someone an employee.” Cherkasky argued that when Saxon Ye wrote “Please trust the process” and “This will be done right,” he was acting in his capacity as an independent contractor.
During the two-week trial, jurors heard potentially crucial testimony from tradesman Jeromy Holding, who corroborated Saxon’s claims that the project was carried out without planning permission and that no one thought Saxon was the right man to handle the permitting issues. Holding testified that he had heard that the property would alternately serve as a private school site, a nuclear shelter, a monastery, a recording studio and a playground with slides and ramps. He claimed Ye yelled at Saxon to work faster.
Censori defends the project
In her own daylong appearance on the witness stand, Censori pushed back against the narrative that the project was rushed and chaotic. She described Ye’s changing instructions as “iterations” of an overarching vision that has remained constant. “Those were all concepts. The idea that it changed isn’t necessarily correct. When he described ideas, that was his concept holistically. It was always meant to be a residence. That never changed.”
In his testimony Friday, Ye yawned, kept his eyes closed for long periods of time, and occasionally appeared to catch his forward drooping head as if he were nodding off on the witness stand. In a monotone voice, he answered “I don’t remember” to dozens of questions. He acknowledged that he had hired Saxon to realize his vision for the Ando House, but did not elaborate.
The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Tuesday, according to the judge.
Anti-Semitism and Yeezy scandals
The muted statement came a little more than a month after Ye took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal apologizing for his long history of anti-Semitic comments. “I do not ask for pity or a free pass, even as I strive to earn your forgiveness,” Ye wrote in the apology released on January 26. “I am writing today simply to ask for your patience and understanding as I find my way home.”
Saxon’s case is the first to go before a jury amid a wave of civil lawsuits from people who worked for Ye over the past six years. The musician, 48, is facing more than a dozen lawsuits after he went on a high-profile Twitter tirade in October 2022, tweeting his now-infamous plan to declare “death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.” Weeks later, ROLLING STONE published an investigation into the alleged “toxic” work environment at his Yeezy label, where Ye allegedly told an employee that “skinheads and Nazis were his biggest inspiration.”
Last year, Ye again posted inflammatory messages on X, the former Twitter, writing “IM A NAZI” and “I LOVE HITLER.” A few days later, he ran a commercial for Yeezy.com during the Super Bowl, where he then sold shirts with swastikas. Last May, he released a single titled “Heil Hitler,” which was shortly thereafter removed from most digital streaming services.
