Media billionaire and Coca-Cola bottling fortune heir Alki David has been ordered to pay a former employee $50 million in punitive damages by a Los Angeles jury for battery, sexual battery, and sexual harassment Monday.
Last week, the jury awarded Mahim Khan $8.25 million in compensatory damages in her suit against David. Khan, a former production assistant at David’s FilmOn TV and Alki David Productions, alleged, among other things, that in 2014 David had thrust his crotch into her face, simulated oral sex, zipped his fly, and said, “Thanks, M.K.,” as he walked away.
This is the third time this year that a jury has ruled against David in cases where former employees have accused him sexually inappropriate behavior, and the latest award brings his total financial punishment to nearly $74 million so far, with two more cases pending.
Last month, Lauren Reeves, a former comedy writer at David’s Hologram USA, won $650,000 in compensatory damages and $4.35 million in punitive damages in a suit alleging that David had grabbed her throat, shoved her chair into a wall, causing her to bang her head, and telling her he needed supplies for his “rape room” in 2016.
In April, a California jury awarded former David employee Chastity Jones $11 million. Jones claimed that David threatened to fire her if she didn’t have sex with him. David was also ordered to pay Jones’s lawyer, Lisa Bloom, $1.34 million in attorney fees.
David has directed his wrath toward Bloom, who represents two of his accusers, as well as her mother, Gloria Allred, who represents Khan. David has said that they are part of a #MeToo conspiracy to extort him.
While acting as his own attorney in the case of Bloom client Elizabeth Taylor in September, David called Bloom a “liar,” “disgusting,” “pathetic,” and “a fucking bitch.” Before being thrown out of the courtroom, the billionaire mogul shouted, “There’s a strategy to extort me through a litany of lies. I’m responding to my castle being invaded as a man.”
That case ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked and was settled out of court in October.
The latest ruling against David is one of the largest ever in an employment case, says New Jersey attorney Nancy Erika Smith, who represented Gretchen Carlson against Fox News.
“Nobody deserves it more,” she said. “He made a mockery of the justice system, the law, the jury, the judge, and he admitted that he had no respect for his female accusers.”
RELATED: The Boorish Billionaire vs. Lisa Bloom: Inside the Most Bizarre #MeToo Trial of the Year
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