An arbitrator has sided with former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, ruling that he was not guilty of sexual assault against his former girlfriend and business partner Michelle Ritter.
The arbitrator, retired Washington State Judge Beth Andrus, recently ordered Ritter to pay $10.7 million in damages to Schmidt.
Ritter sued Schmidt in Los Angeles County Superior Court last September, accusing the billionaire tech mogul of “forcibly” raping her on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021. She also alleged Schmidt forced her to have nonconsensual sex at the Burning Man festival in 2023.
“I clearly told him ‘no’ and tried to get him to stop, but I had learned that attempting to resist physically would be futile and make things worse,” Ritter said in a legal filing.
Schmidt has denied the accusations under oath. The arbitrator said that Ritter did “everything she could possibly do” to avoid discussing the rape accusations under oath.
Ritter had a romantic relationship with the 70-year-old Schmidt after they met in 2020 while she was pursuing graduate degrees in law and business at Columbia University. He invested about $100 million in a joint venture with her that later fell apart.
The pair’s dispute stretches back to 2024 after their personal relationship unraveled and as they were negotiating a settlement of their Steel Perlot venture, a business accelerator that invested in artificial intelligence, crypto and other startups.
Ritter also accused Schmidt of stealing the joint venture from her, which he denied.
“One can also conclude that Ritter engaged in self-centered efforts to obtain revenge against Schmidt in a way that was more damaging than helpful to her cause,” Andrus wrote in her decision, which was recently made public. “I find that Ritter’s statement that she was raped by Schmidt to be false.”
Ritter, 32, alleged that a 2022 federal law inspired by the #MeToo movement intended to end forced arbitration of sexual assault and harassment claims allowed her to have her case heard in open court.
Superior Court Judge Michael Small disagreed, ruling that the law did not apply because a financial settlement and arbitration agreement Ritter and Schmidt signed in December 2024 was entered into after the alleged sexual wrongdoing — not before as legally required.
The judge sent the case to arbitration in March. Ritter filed a federal lawsuit in California last month challenging the arbitration.
Schmidt served as Google chief executive from 2001 to 2011 and later as the chairman of the Silicon Valley company and its parent, Alphabet Inc., until 2017.
Schmidt is worth about $52 billion, largely through his stock holding in Google’s parent company, Alphabet, according to Bloomberg.
Last year, Schmidt took a controlling interest in Relativity Space, a Long Beach rocket startup founded in 2015.
Attorneys for Ritter and Schmidt did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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