Former Google chief sued by ex-partner

When Columbia University law and MBA student Michelle Ritter met former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt in 2020, she said she wanted to pitch a potential investment in a sports tech startup she had been developing.

- By LAURENCE DARMIENTO

That dinner blossomed into far more, a romance and business partnership in which she says the 70-year-old billionaire invested in excess of $100 million into a jointly owned tech incubator —before it all fell apart.

Now, Ritter is accusing Schmidt of stealing business out from under her, sexually assaulting her twice during their relationship, and tapping his Google background to hack into her email and online computer files, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

“During their relationship, Schmidt confided that when he worked at Google, he built an insider “backdoor” to Google servers with a team of Google engineers in order to spy on Google employees. Accordingly, the backdoor enabled him to access anyone’s Google account and private information,” the lawsuit says.

Google is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit and is alleged to “knowingly acquiescing in, failing to remedy, and materially assisting the unauthorized access” into Ritter’s accounts despite being provided notice. Schmidt and the company are accused of violating the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, and a section of the state penal code that prohibits wiretapping.

Patricia Glaser, an attorney representing Schmidt, called the lawsuit “yet another desperate and destructive effort to publish false and defamatory statements to escape accountability from an existing arbitration over a business dispute.”

Glaser added: “The claims made here are directly contradicted by her own words...and are just a final Hail Mary to save her from the consequences of her own actions. We are confident that we will prevail on both the specific legal issue enforcing the arbitration and disproving these fabricated pathetic allegations.”

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.