After a judge previously dismissed Sanford and eXp from the case, the woman behind the suit is seeking to more clearly connect them to the misdeeds of now-former agents.
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Less than three weeks after a judge dismissed eXp and founder Glenn Sanford from a sexual assault lawsuit, the woman who filed the case has added the company and executive back into the case as defendants once again.
Anya Roberts names eXp Realty, parent firm eXp World Holdings and Sanford as defendants in a new amended complaint filed on June 13. The filing is notable because, at the end of May, U.S. District Judge André Birotte had dismissed the brokerage, parent firm and executive from the case. Among other things, Birotte said Roberts failed to establish an employer relationship between Sanford and other defendants and didn’t show how eXp benefited from ignoring claims of misbehavior.
The newly amended complaint seeks to more strongly connect Sanford and eXp to the alleged misbehavior of other defendants in the case.
However, in a statement to Inman Tuesday, eXp argued that the claims against it are baseless.
“EXp Realty has zero tolerance for abuse, harassment, or misconduct of any kind — including by the independent real estate agents who use our services,” the statement argues. “EXp hopes and trusts that the court will give a full and fair hearing to the plaintiffs as they continue to pursue claims against the individuals who allegedly assaulted them. However, the claims against eXp and its leadership have no basis in fact or law.”
News of the amended complaint was first reported by Housing Wire.
Roberts first filed the suit in December. Among other things, she has claimed that now-former eXp agent and recruiter David Golden and his girlfriend, Emily Keenan, drugged and sexually assaulted her during a boating trip in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in 2020. Roberts, also an eXp agent, has additionally alleged in her court filings that Golden promised her she’d experience “more financial success” if she made him her sponsor.
A month after the Puerto Vallarta incident, Roberts traveled to Daytona Beach, Florida, according to her complaint, where Golden allegedly gave her a “workout performance-enhancing drug” in their shared hotel room. She passed out again and allegedly woke the next morning to another agent and recruiter, Michael Bjorkman, exposing himself to her.
Golden, Keenan and Bjorkman are all named as defendants in the case. The case also names current eXp agent Michael Sherrard as a defendant, saying he groped Roberts in 2021.
Additionally, the new amended complaint adds eXp agent and team leader Brent Gove back into the case. Gove hosted the events at which the alleged assaults took place and was originally a defendant in the case, but a judge had dismissed him along with Sanford and the company in May.
In dismissing Sanford and other defendants, the judge said last month that Roberts failed to prove that Sanford and eXp had anything to gain “from plaintiff switching her sponsor in response to the alleged sex acts.” The judge also said Roberts failed to prove that Sanford and eXp were aware of the police reports she filed. In Gove’s case, the judge said Roberts’ complaint needed “additional facts” to prove Gove was aware of team members’ alleged actions.
Roberts’ new, amended complaint is meant to address those various issues. For instance, it states that in October of 2020 eXp “received a memo with granular detail describing the previous blatant, overt, and well-known behavior of” Bjorkman and Golden, who routinely invited “agents to recruiting parties where they would drug and assault individuals — under the guise of agent attraction.”
The amended complaint later states that in April 2022, an eXp board member spoke to the rest of the board about the company’s “failure to take any action to curb the sexual assault incidents that were occurring at eXp Realty.” The amended complaint claims the company ignored that board member’s suggested solutions, and that Sanford himself said the allegations were “not eXp’s problem.” The amended complaint goes on to state that Sanford said the allegations, as well as Bjorkman being arrested, “would be simply a three- to five-day newspaper phenomenon, which would then disappear.”
Such anecdotes apparently aim to show that eXp and Sanford knew about the situation but did not take appropriate action.
Ultimately, the amended complaint states that “the detestable actions” that prompted the suit “were rampant within eXp culture; they occurred during eXp events, at agent-sponsored events, as well as at events where eXp was in attendance; it permeated the company’s culture.”
Roberts’ suit is not the only one raising issues of sexual assault at eXp; in another case, former eXp recruits Fabiola Acevedo, Tami Sims, Christiana Lundy and another woman known as Jane Doe 3, make similar allegations against Golden and Bjorkman. That suit names Golden, Bjorkman, Gove, eXp World Holdings, eXp Realty and Sanford as defendants.
In Roberts’ case, she levels a total of eight different counts — including sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and other charges — against the various defendants. She concludes her amended complaint by asking for a jury trial as well as unspecified damages.
Read the full amended complaint here: