The storm of allegations of sexual harassment that began with revelations about film producer Harvey Weinstein’s relationships with female actors and moved to complaints about similar assaults by gay actors and agents such as Kevin Spacey and Tyler Grasham now is raining on Grindr, the West Hollywood-based company that operates the world’s most widely used gay sex hookup app.
A former employee of Grindr, which is headquartered at the Pacific Design Center, is suing the company after allegedly being raped by a Grindr human resources manager at the company’s 2016 Christmas party.
The lawsuit was filed on Thursday in L.A. County Superior Court. The plaintiff, identified in the suit as “John Doe,” 36, said he had been hired by Grindr in 2011 as an IT and networking consultant and carried the title “manager of customer support.” In the court filing, Doe, who lived in Scotland, said Grindr flew him to Los Angeles in December 2016 to train Grindr employees and attend its Christmas party in downtown Los Angeles.
Doe alleges that during the party, where alcohol was consumed, Grindr human resources manager Daniel Cabanero “made sexually inappropriate comments” to him. At some point, Doe alleges, he felt as if he had been drugged. He then was taken to his hotel room by Cabanero and one or more other unnamed Grindr employees.
In his complaint, Doe said he “remembers being in his hotel room with Daniel Cabanero on top of him, holding him down, naked, and anally raping him. (Doe) also recalls seeing another man … in the background, as he was being sexually assaulted.”
Doe said he woke up the next morning, Dec. 10, and went to a hospital emergency room for a rape examination. “Law (To continue reading, click here).
