After a decide beforehand dismissed Sanford and eXp from the case, the lady behind the swimsuit is in search of to extra clearly join them to the misdeeds of now-former brokers.
At Inman Join Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1, 2024, the noise and misinformation shall be banished, all of your massive questions shall be answered, and new enterprise alternatives shall be revealed. Be part of us.
Lower than three weeks after a decide dismissed eXp and founder Glenn Sanford from a sexual assault lawsuit, the lady who filed the case has added the corporate and government again into the case as defendants as soon as once more.
Anya Roberts names eXp Realty, mother or father agency eXp World Holdings and Sanford as defendants in a brand new amended grievance filed on June 13. The submitting is notable as a result of, on the finish of Could, U.S. District Choose André Birotte had dismissed the brokerage, mother or father agency and government from the case. Amongst different issues, Birotte mentioned Roberts failed to ascertain an employer relationship between Sanford and different defendants and didn’t present how eXp benefited from ignoring claims of misbehavior.
The newly amended grievance seeks to extra strongly join Sanford and eXp to the alleged misbehavior of different defendants within the case.
Nevertheless, in a press release to Inman Tuesday, eXp argued that the claims towards it are baseless.
“EXp Realty has zero tolerance for abuse, harassment, or misconduct of any variety — together with by the impartial actual property brokers who use our providers,” the assertion argues. “EXp hopes and trusts that the court docket will give a full and honest listening to to the plaintiffs as they proceed to pursue claims towards the people who allegedly assaulted them. Nevertheless, the claims towards eXp and its management don’t have any foundation in reality or legislation.”
Information of the amended grievance was first reported by Housing Wire.
Roberts first filed the swimsuit in December. Amongst different issues, she has claimed that now-former eXp agent and recruiter David Golden and his girlfriend, Emily Keenan, drugged and sexually assaulted her throughout a boating journey in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in 2020. Roberts, additionally an eXp agent, has moreover alleged in her court docket filings that Golden promised her she’d expertise “extra monetary success” if she made him her sponsor.
A month after the Puerto Vallarta incident, Roberts traveled to Daytona Seaside, Florida, in line with her grievance, the place Golden allegedly gave her a “exercise performance-enhancing drug” of their shared resort room. She handed out once more and allegedly woke the subsequent morning to a different agent and recruiter, Michael Bjorkman, exposing himself to her.
Golden, Keenan and Bjorkman are all named as defendants within the case. The case additionally names present eXp agent Michael Sherrard as a defendant, saying he groped Roberts in 2021.
Moreover, the brand new amended grievance provides eXp agent and group chief Brent Gove again into the case. Gove hosted the occasions at which the alleged assaults came about and was initially a defendant within the case, however a decide had dismissed him together with Sanford and the corporate in Could.
In dismissing Sanford and different defendants, the decide mentioned final month that Roberts did not show that Sanford and eXp had something to realize “from plaintiff switching her sponsor in response to the alleged intercourse acts.” The decide additionally mentioned Roberts did not show that Sanford and eXp have been conscious of the police reviews she filed. In Gove’s case, the decide mentioned Roberts’ grievance wanted “further information” to show Gove was conscious of group members’ alleged actions.
Roberts’ new, amended grievance is supposed to deal with these numerous points. As an illustration, it states that in October of 2020 eXp “acquired a memo with granular element describing the earlier blatant, overt, and well-known conduct of” Bjorkman and Golden, who routinely invited “brokers to recruiting events the place they’d drug and assault people — below the guise of agent attraction.”
The amended grievance later states that in April 2022, an eXp board member spoke to the remainder of the board in regards to the firm’s “failure to take any motion to curb the sexual assault incidents that have been occurring at eXp Realty.” The amended grievance claims the corporate ignored that board member’s advised options, and that Sanford himself mentioned the allegations have been “not eXp’s drawback.” The amended grievance goes on to state that Sanford mentioned the allegations, in addition to Bjorkman being arrested, “could be merely a three- to five-day newspaper phenomenon, which might then disappear.”
Such anecdotes apparently goal to point out that eXp and Sanford knew in regards to the scenario however didn’t take acceptable motion.
In the end, the amended grievance states that “the detestable actions” that prompted the swimsuit “have been rampant inside eXp tradition; they occurred throughout eXp occasions, at agent-sponsored occasions, in addition to at occasions the place eXp was in attendance; it permeated the corporate’s tradition.”
Roberts’ swimsuit will not be the one one elevating problems with sexual assault at eXp; in one other case, former eXp recruits Fabiola Acevedo, Tami Sims, Christiana Lundy and one other lady often called Jane Doe 3, make comparable allegations towards Golden and Bjorkman. That swimsuit names Golden, Bjorkman, Gove, eXp World Holdings, eXp Realty and Sanford as defendants.
In Roberts’ case, she ranges a complete of eight totally different counts — together with sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional misery and different expenses — towards the assorted defendants. She concludes her amended grievance by asking for a jury trial in addition to unspecified damages.
Learn the total amended grievance right here:
Electronic mail Jim Dalrymple II
