The heir to a Coca-Cola bottling fortune has been ordered to pay out millions in damages to a former employee who accused him of sexual assault.
A Los Angeles jury unanimously ruled that Greek billionaire Alki David will have to pay the woman, identified as Jane Doe in her lawsuit, a whopping $900 million for allegedly harassing and raping her over three years, her lawyer said.
“It’s so despicable, the facts of this case. He raped my client while on trial in another case,” attorney Gary Dordick told the Los Angeles Times.
The abuse allegedly began in February 2016 while the victim worked as a model for several of David’s companies — including Hologram USA, which creates holograms of dead celebrities.
That office was “alarmingly hostile,” Jane Doe’s lawyers said, with one room referred to as “The Rape Room” and a pornographic image labelled “HER-ASS” adorning the human resources department door.
He initially tried to kiss her during a work trip on his private island in Greece, but she rejected him and he apologized, according to the suit.
Jane Doe was laid off later that year and did not speak with him again until 2018 when he invited her to rejoin his team as a brand ambassador at his cannabis manufacturing company, Swiss-X.
After she accepted the job, David allegedly invited her back to his hotel room where he had her sample of what he claimed was a CBD product, but which left her feeling inebriated and disoriented.
The billionaire is accused in the lawsuit of taking advantage of the incoherent woman by masturbating in front of her and forcing him to touch him sexually.
The abuse escalated the following year when David allegedly raped her in a small room during a business meeting with his Doberman pinscher present, the LA Times reported.
At the time, David was on trial for allegedly thrusting his pelvis into employee Mahim Khan’s face.
He was ordered to pay her $58 million for the abuse — marking the third ruling against him in that year alone.
Other employees have claimed David had tried to force himself upon them or fired them for refusing to have sex with him.
“This monumental verdict marks a significant triumph for justice and sets a precedent in the fight against workplace sexual assault,” Dordick said in a statement.
