Credit: DisneyWARNING: THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE INCLUDES GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT BY A FORMER DISNEY EXECUTIVE
An anonymous employee has filed a new lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company, accusing the iconic media corporation of ignoring her sexual assault by a former executive and actively concealing it from human resources. The staffer, listed as Jane Doe, is asking for unspecified compensatory and statutory damages, civil penalties, interests, costs, and attorneys’ fees.
According to Jane Doe’s lawsuit, she is a survivor of years of alleged sexual misconduct and abuse from former Disney
Vice President Of Distribution Nolan Gonzales. The court filing states, “Plaintiff was not Gonzales’s first victim nor his last. Many employees, including those in management, were aware of his sexually harassing behaviors to women within the company and to others in the industry.”
The full lawsuit can be read here:
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Jane Doe’s lawsuit against Disney goes into great detail about numerous incidents of sexual misconduct and assault by Gonzales. One excerpt reads:
“For the next few months, Gonzales deceived Plaintiff into ingesting illicit drugs and encouraged Plaintiff to consume excessive amounts of alcohol so that he could sexually abuse her with limited resistance or questioning. Gonzales used his position of power and blackmail to force her to have sex with him. He made her believe that she needed to listen to him to keep her job. Gonzales took intimate photos and videos of Plaintiff without her consent and refused to delete them.”
The lawsuit claims that Disney was aware of Gonzales’s behavior, but did nothing and actively concealed Doe’s claims from human resources due to the executive’s position.
“Management was incentivized to hide Gonzales’s harassment because he generated valuable revenue as the Director of Distribution. Management did not escalate concerns to human resources and created an environment in which Gonzales was free to harass women with impunity. Women were discouraged to come forward about his behaviors because management seemingly accepted Gonzales conduct as being part of the entertainment industry and his firing would hurt the company financially.”
These are all serious allegations on Jane Doe’s part, and could not come at a worse time for Disney.
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The company is currently facing an enormous number of lawsuits, including a massive class action lawsuit from 9,000 female employees accusing the company of gender-based pay discrimination. Disney is also attempting to disentangle itself from an entirely separate sexual assault case involving disgraced former Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein. Both the latter case and Jane Doe’s are being filed under various acts that allow for the statute of limitations on sexual crimes to be extended.
We will update with further information on the Jane Doe case as it emerges.
Inside the Magic reached out to Disney for comment, but has not heard back by the time of publishing.
Does Disney have a history of concealing misconduct by its employees? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.