Billionaire Fined Nearly $10K For Courtroom Outbursts

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — A hologram producer accused of sexual harassment by a former employee was fined another $4,500 Tuesday by a Los Angeles judge for repeated courtroom outbursts, bringing the total assessments against the businessman to $9,500 in less than a week.

"You don't get a pass from all the rules because you're representing yourself," Superior Court Judge Christopher Lui told 51-year-old Alki David, who is acting as his own attorney. "Your conduct is affecting my ability to run this courtroom."

The judge told David to stop speaking to jurors and to cease lashing out at Lisa Bloom, the attorney for the plaintiff, 32-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. David has called Bloom a liar, an extortionist and other unflattering names during the trial.

Lui additionally said he was cutting back on the time David will be allowed to present his defense. The judge further warned the defendant that if he continues disobeying Lui's orders, he will be removed from the courtroom.

The judge also fined David $2,000 last Wednesday and another $3,000 on Friday.

Taylor, a former account executive at David's FilmOnTV, previously testified that he once picked her up by the ankles and walked her upside down around the office, exposing her underwear. She also said he played an offensive video on her computer and brought a male stripper into the workplace to celebrate a female executive's birthday.

Taylor said she was hired in January 2015 and fired that June. David's other companies include Hologram USA. All of the companies are being represented during trial by lawyers Ellyn Garofalo and Amir Kaltgrad, while David is representing himself.

Before testifying Tuesday on behalf of Taylor, former Hologram USA comedy writer Lauren Reeves — who has filed a separate suit against David — said she was "terrified" at the prospect of being cross-examined by him.

The 35-year-old witness told jurors she had two stints working as an independent contractor for David, one in 2015 and another in 2016. She said she came back the second time to pitch an idea to him and because she was interested in working with holograms.

But she that after enduring many indignities, the final straw came in September 2016, when David returned from an absence and summoned her to his office for an update on a new show.

David closed the window blinds and the door, dropped his pants and then forced Reeves' head toward his private parts, she said. He then opened the door and called a sales executive into the office, hoping to convince the other man that she was giving David oral sex, Reeves said.

Later, David demanded that she accompany him to the hotel where he was staying, Reeves said.

"I left and I never went back," she said.

On a previous occasion, David told Reeves he was stopping to get supplies for his "rape room," she said.

"I was disgusted," she said. "I was scared he was planning on raping me."

David twice put his hands around Reeves' throat in the workplace in April 2016, the second time occurring in front of a comedian with whom she was having a conversation, the witness said. She said David demanded during the alleged assault that she look into his eyes and said he was bullied as a child.

During her cross-examination by David, Reeves said she did not consider his actions playful or a joke.

"Assaulting women is not funny," she said. "I think you do it because you get some sick pleasure out of doing it to women."

Asked by David if she was suing him to get money, she replied, "I am suing you for justice. I have been through hell the last three years and I don't think you care."

Reeves said she did not know Taylor when they worked for David and will not receive any benefits if Taylor wins her case. Reeves' trial of her suit against David and his companies is scheduled Sept. 9. She is represented by Bloom's mother, Gloria Allred.

In other testimony, Taylor's mother brought tears to her daughter's eyes when she described how her offspring's outgoing personality and trim figure and both changed for the worse since her experiences with David.

"She's not the same person," Sandy Taylor said. "She's a shell of herself."

Taylor was a witness in the separate trial in April of co-plaintiff Chasity Jones' case against David, in which she was awarded $11 million in compensatory and punitive damages. She alleged she was fired for refusing to have sex with David. Jones testified on behalf of Taylor on Monday.

City News Service