His arrogance cost him more than $600,000 — and it doesn’t look like he gives a stitch.
Jay-Z’s millionaire former Rocawear business partner yesterday was ordered to fork over $634,453 to a fashion designer who accused him of cheating her out of wages, The Post has learned.
That amount is nearly 17 times the $38,000 that the stiffed designer, Michelle DeBellis, sought from millionaire ex-Rocawear co-owner Alex Bize in Manhattan federal court.
Bize — hip-hop mogul Jay-Z’s jet-setting, former right-hand man — was slammed with the hefty default judgment after failing to appear in court and not even responding to the lawsuit.
“From what we are told, he has significant personal assets, and we don’t know why he didn’t pay his employees,” DeBellis said through her lawyers, Russell Moriarty and Matthew Blit.
Moriarty added, “She should still have her job, and she should still have her salary, and that’s why the judge awarded her so much more money.
“We just have to start trying to collect.”
Bize, 56, who sold his part of Rocawear for millions of dollars several years ago, had been sued by DeBellis, a former merchandiser and designer at his popular CAVI Women’s Collection, last year.
The stiffed designer, 46, said she was hired at $130,000 a year — but that she and some co-workers rarely saw paychecks from Bize.
When she filed her suit, DeBellis — whose résumé includes work for Victoria’s Secret, Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez — told The Post that she couldn’t make ends meet while Bize lived at swanky Trump Place in Manhattan. The pad was filled with expensive art, she said, and Bize was regularly chauffeured around.
He also owns homes on Fisher Island in Miami and in Russia thanks to his Rocawear payoff and earnings from his trendy CAVI label, which counts 50 Cent, Nas and the Black Eyed Peas among its clientele.
After DeBellis began working for Bize in November 2010, her scheduled biweekly payments were often late and sporadic.
At most, she’d get paid once a month — and the designer says she didn’t get paid at all for three months.
She complained about the missed payments on a weekly basis, she said. But each time, Bize would promise to pay “soon,” “tomorrow” or “next week,” according to court papers.
“She was complaining like anyone would about not being paid,” Moriarty said.
Then last August, DeBellis’ uncomfortable work situation turned even more sour.
“He turned around and fired her for no reason,” the lawyer said.
Bize did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment yesterday.