During a virtual hearing held Wednesday for the Acevedo v. eXp sexual assault case, defendants from eXp and affiliated entities clashed with plaintiffs after being bombarded with hundreds of documents produced at the last minute, a series of workplace profiles and chats disappearing and a forged signature, allegedly.
The case, originally filed in February of 2023, involves accusations by four women that two top eXp recruiters drugged and sexually assaulted them at company events, and that company leadership sought to cover for the recruiters.
At the hearing, attorneys for the plaintiffs primarily focused on eXp’s retention policies. Andrea Hirsch, one of the lawyers representing the women, brought up concerns about deleted messages and accounts on the company’s messaging platform.
A main concern from the plaintiffs’ side is that eXp has a 90-day audit policy.
“I’m trying to understand, how is this even set up, that a publicly traded company has a 90-day audit trail and then, it’s forever gone,” Hirsch said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
After a lengthy back and forth with William Pallares, a lawyer representing eXp, arguing that the company does not have a policy to delete accounts, Hirsch said that the plaintiffs have two witnesses who can testify that eXp founder Glenn Sanford would routinely delete accounts and that there was an entire group chat that was deleted “at the direction of the CEO Glenn Sanford.”
Judge Alicia Rosenberg also heard eXp’s counsel’s arguments about a forged signature and discovery abuse.
Addressing the late production of documents, Rosenberg heard Pallares ask for assurance that during the next plaintiffs deposition—scheduled for April 18 for plaintiff Christiana Lundy—if there are additional documents produced, that they be produced “prior than the day before.”
According to the defendants’ counsel, the plaintiffs’ counsel has “routinely produced documents the night before the depositions for plaintiffs,” read their supplement.
Accepting responsibility for the influx of documents produced the day before, plaintiffs’ attorney Hirsch said that these were a reproduction of documents the defendant’s counsel already had that were produced a second time, with the addition of “maybe five very small text messages that were new that had no substance to them.”
Rosenberg told Hirsch that it would be a “good idea” to tell the other side that they sent duplicative documents, except for five pages. Allegedly, these were 381 documents consisting of approximately 1,748 pages.
eXp’s counsel alleged that the counsel for defendant David Golden—a former eXp agent accused of drugging and raping women at company events—filed a document with a signature on behalf of eXp’s legal team without authorization. Seeking an “Order to Show Cause,” eXp asked why sanctions should not be imposed for this alleged forged signature.
Rosenberg said she doesn’t think it’s for the court to Order to Show Cause and that she would need a motion in order to see what actually occurred.
The judge then moved on to the main agenda for the defendants—protective orders regarding the deposition for Leo Pareja, CEO of eXp Realty, and James Bramble, chief legal counsel for eXp World Holdings.
Pallares argued that since the document request on the deposition notice is directed at the suspension of Golden’s revenue share and that Pareja doesn’t have any information about that, nor this case, he does not need to be questioned. According to Pallares, Golden’s attorney, Peter Levine, “seems to think” Pareja has information relevant to the plaintiffs’ case, but Pallares told the judge that he doesn’t believe that.
For Bramble, Pallares said he doesn’t want to “go into the issue of revenue share suspension” with him either, but since Bramble is a member of the Compliance Committee, he understands the court being interested in those meeting minutes. Essentially, Pallares said he wants to prevent Levine from questioning Pareja and Bramble about revenue share suspension.
Levine held on, arguing that revenue share indeed is an issue in this case since “it’s in the pleadings” and that it was suspended because of Golden’s “alleged misconduct.”
Since Bramble was a witness to Golden’s termination, and since Pareja, Levine argues, is in “certain emails leading up to issues in this case” and is a witness in terms of policies and procedures, “it’s a very simplistic approach just to say he has no relevant information. It goes beyond revenue share.”
On the plaintiffs’ side, they also want Bramble deposed in the case, said attorney Jennifer Lenze, since he was “designated at the outset by eXp in their initial disclosures and we would cross-notice that deposition as well.” The date Golden’s revenue share was terminated and why it occurred is relevant in this case, she said.
After eXp knew of the allegations against Golden, the company continued to pay him “up until the time of filing the complaint, at which point, they then suspended him, and so it is absolutely relevant in terms of plaintiffs’ claims for those reasons, as well as related to the actions of eXp after all of this knowledge was had for some time, for years, really,” said Lenze.
Agreeing, Levine said if eXp “continued paying it for a year and a half with awareness of these allegations, then obviously there was no misconduct, according to the company or else they wouldn’t have paid him. Therefore, I want to pursue that line of questions.”
Ultimately, the judge said that because the depositions need to go forward since there are other relevant matters pertinent to the case that need to be addressed, it makes the most sense to proceed with the depositions, and that any objections can be addressed with a motion to compel—in order not to waste any more time.
The trial date is currently set for Nov. 17, 2025.