{"id":4299,"date":"2026-06-01T23:18:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/eric-schmidt-scores-victory-in-case-brought-by-ex-girlfriend\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T23:18:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:18:34","slug":"eric-schmidt-scores-victory-in-case-brought-by-ex-girlfriend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/eric-schmidt-scores-victory-in-case-brought-by-ex-girlfriend\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Schmidt scores victory in case brought by ex-girlfriend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F3%2F2026%2F06%2Fnewspress-collage-3rrg1g1ag-1780355457620.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261780341082\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Retired Washington State Judge Beth Andrus, who was serving as an arbitrator, wrote that<a href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2025\/10\/20\/celebrity-news\/eric-schmidts-ex-mistress-31-sues-former-google-ceo-70-over-alleged-stalking-and-abuse\/\"> Michelle Ritter <\/a>engaged \u201cin defamation by falsely and with malice accusing Schmidt of sexual assault and sexual harassment\u201d and noted the 32-year-old did \u201ceverything she could possibly do\u201d to avoid being questioned about her rape accusations under oath.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Michelle Ritter and Eric Schmidt seen leaving Hollywood connector Michael Kives\u2019 house in 2023. <span class=\"credit\">Diggzy\/Jesal \/ SplashNews.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cEither her accusation of rape was false, she knew it was false, and the declaration confirmed it was false,\u201d Andrus wrote, \u201cor Ritter was willing to swear out a false declaration in exchange for $14 million and a payment of $1 million to her parents\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n<p>This was in reference to a declaration Ritter signed as part of an earlier settlement agreement with Schmidt, where she attested that all contact with Schmidt was \u201centirely consensual\u201d and \u201cnever coerced or compelled.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The arbitrator found Ritter liable to pay $10.7 million to Schmidt \u2014 a number that will likely escalate upon on her final decision in a few weeks.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Schmidt was romantically involved with Ritter from 2021 until 2024, and he helped fund her AI startup Steel Perlot with a $100 million investment. <span class=\"credit\">Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Andrus also slammed Ritter for making her claims on social media, writing, \u201cRitter chose to use a very public forum to manipulate this system for her own personal benefit \u2014 not for the benefit of victims at large \u2026 <\/p>\n<p>\u201cRitter\u2019s shameful false claims of sexual assault, advanced to extort and punish Schmidt, undermine and impair the pursuit of justice by legitimate victims.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The findings were made on April 29, but are now being made public because Ritter filed a federal lawsuit in California where she attached the arbitrator\u2019s ruling to a sworn declaration.\u00a0 The federal lawsuit is to challenge the arbitration award and to assert various other claims.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ritter had also accused Schmidt, who served as Google\u2019s CEO from 20021 to 2011, of stalking and building an insider \u201cbackdoor\u201d to Google servers to spy on her and other employees.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Schmidt and his wife Wendy, seen at a gala at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in April, have been married for 46 years. <span class=\"credit\">Getty Images for LACMA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>She <a href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2021\/07\/12\/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dating-michelle-ritter\/\">started dating Schmidt in 2021 <\/a>\u2014 and the tech titan helped fund her AI startup Steel Perlot with $100 million \u2014 but they were reportedly on the outs by May 2024.<\/p>\n<p>She<strong> <\/strong>filed an explosive lawsuit in in Los Angeles County Superior Court last September, in which <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/26\/business\/ex-mistress-of-ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-accuses-him-of-rape-creepy-surveillance-court-docs\/\">she alleged Schmidt. 71, assaulted her <\/a>on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021 and again at the 2023 Burning Man festival.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe followed me into a shower, slammed me against the wall, and forcibly raped me,\u201d Ritter previously alleged. \u201cI begged him to stop and cried out that he was hurting me, but he ignored my pleas. The next morning, Schmidt attempted to convince me that I enjoyed the assault.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Schmidt was linked to 27-year-old Gloria-Sophie Burkandt,  the daughter of Bavarian Minister-President Markus S\u00f6der, but their liaison was short-lived. <span class=\"credit\">Gloria-Sophie Burkandt \/ Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>She similarly alleged that in August 2023, at the Burning Man festival in Nevada, Schmidt initiated sex while she slept.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI clearly told him \u2018no\u2019 and tried to get him to stop, but I had learned that attempting to resist physically would be futile and make things worse,\u201d she added in the same legal filing.<\/p>\n<p>Ritter further accused Schmidt of unwanted voyeurism and pressuring her with sexual fetishes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn multiple occasions, Schmidt surreptitiously photographed me without my consent while I was nude, including entering the bathroom to take photographs while I was showering,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Schmidt and wife Wendy at the LACMA Art+Film Gala in 2025. <span class=\"credit\">FilmMagic<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The relationship ended after photos surfaced in early 2024 of Schmidt with a 22-year-old woman, according to court documents. Post-breakup, Ritter claimed that the surveillance escalated.<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt has been married to <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/05\/20\/entertainment\/eric-schmidt-seen-with-wife-months-after-giving-100m-to-younger-girlfriend\/\">his wife, Wendy,<\/a> since 1980. He was recently linked to<a href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2026\/02\/11\/celebrity-news\/billionaire-eric-schmidt-sure-has-a-lot-of-attractive-young-female-friends\/\"> Gloria-Sophie Burkandt,<\/a> a 27-year-old model, economist and PhD candidate who is the daughter of Bavarian Minister-President Markus S\u00f6der, but he is currently not seeing anyone seriously, we\u2019re told.<\/p>\n<p>in her filing, Ritter claimed she had not been allowed to give evidence and called the judge\u2019s statements \u201cfalse, disparaging, and defamatory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ritter said she was the vicim of an \u201cabuse-of-process pattern,\u201d insisting the arbitration proceedings were \u201cnot used to adjudicate a genuine dispute on the merits but to manufacture a damages judgment against a pro se sexual-assault reporter through procedural mechanisms she could not effectively contest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2026\/06\/01\/celebrity-news\/eric-schmidt-scores-victory-in-case-brought-by-ex-girlfriend\/\" target=\"_blank\">Source link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retired Washington State Judge Beth Andrus, who was serving as an arbitrator, wrote that Michelle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/newspress-collage-3rrg1g1ag-1780355457620.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/login9ja.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}