LA jury hits billionaire with $50M in punitive damages in sex suit

After little more than an hour of deliberation, a jury Monday ordered billionaire Alki David to pay $50 million in punitive damages to a former employee who sued him for sexual harassment.

Coupled with $8.25 million in actual damages awarded to plaintiff Mahim Khan last week, the award against David in the fourth sexual harassment trial brought against him by a former employee in 2019 was $58.25 million.

In total, the trials in Los Angeles County Superior Court have put David on the hook for roughly $65.35 million. Juries found against David in two of the three previous cases, awarding plaintiffs Chastity Jones and Lauren Reeves $11 million and $4.35 million, respectively, while a third ended in a mistrial. Mahim Khan v. Hologram USA Inc., BC645017 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed March 14, 2017).

David was not present Monday. Barred from self-representation two weeks ago, David has been largely absent since. Near the close of argument last week, he stormed into the court to make one final erratic, impassioned plea to Judge Michelle Williams Court but failed to win back his pro per right as he intended.

In a video posted to his Instagram account last week, David -- wearing a wig -- vowed to sneak into court "dressed as a woman" to once again speak in his own defense in the trial but did not follow through on the scheme.

Court said her decision to bar David from self-representation was primarily motivated by his poor in-court treatment of Khan, who filed suit against David last year for numerous incidents of sexual harassment and generally inappropriate workplace conduct. At trial, Khan testified David would routinely sneak up behind her at her office desk at Hologram USA -- the proprietary owners of headline-making holograms like Tupac Shakur -- and shove her face into his crotch. Over the course of her time there, Khan said David would slip his hands under her clothes without consent.

Superiors wrote off David's poor conduct when Khan would complain to them, she said, claiming it was "just Alki being Alki."

The $50 million figure was just what plaintiff's counsel Nathan J. Goldberg of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg LLP requested in order to make the billionaire "feel" the verdict. Though he deferred full comment to a press conference to be held Tuesday afternoon, he celebrated the verdict following the announcement.

"This is a historic occasion," Goldberg said Monday. "The jury awarded an amount they had to in order to get Mr. David's attention."