LOS ANGELES (CNS) - After yet another outburst in front of a jury, a wealthy businessman involved in a fourth sexual harassment and battery trial since April was ordered out of the courtroom today by a judge, who said he could not return until after the lunch break.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michelle Williams Court also told 51-year-old hologram producer and television streamer Alki David that she was denying his request for reconsideration of her previous ruling that he could no longer represent himself.
After David's outburst, the judge's courtroom assistant immediately ushered the jury into the jury room. As the jurors were being removed from the courtroom, the defendant shouted to them that they needed to hear what he had to say on the witness stand.
David did not immediately leave the courtroom, choosing instead to turn his anger at lawyers for the plaintiff, 35-year-old Mahim Khan. The attorneys work with civil rights attorney Gloria Allred.
“This law firm and the (Lisa) Bloom firm have been targeting me, but I'm innocent of the things I'm accused of,” David said. “The whole sexual harassment thing has destroyed my reputation.”
The casually dressed David, who called the judge a “liberal,” said he would return in the afternoon and that he wanted to be allowed to testify. But the judge has put limitations on the defense David can present because of his disregard of court orders regarding his conduct in the courtroom and his compliance with discovery directives.
David arrived to the courtroom in the middle of the testimony of Nicholas Hyams, who said that as the CEO of Fresh Coast Media, he had done business with David and seen him fondle Khan in the workplace. The witness said he believed Khan was traumatized by the unwelcome touching.
Hyams also said he saw David making gestures that suggested he was having oral sex with Khan.
However, Hyams said he and David never had any “intense falling-out.”
In her earlier testimony, Khan told jurors she was hired in October 2014 as a production assistant by associates of David and quit about a year later. She said that he often walked up behind her unexpectedly and rubbed her breasts and private parts, prompting her to put a mirror on her desk so she could have some warning of his approach.
The plaintiff said that while she was working on a Ray Charles hologram, David performed a lap dance on her without her permission and twirled one hand in the air as if he was a bronco rider at a rodeo.
Khan said she resigned in about October 2015 because she could no longer cope with working for David, who was behind the hologram technology that brought slain rapper Tupac Shakur to Coachella in 2012 and saw the late Michael Jackson moonwalk at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards.
David's companies, FilmOn TV, Hologram USA Inc. and Alki David Productions, are also defendants in the lawsuit and are represented by lawyers Ellyn Garofalo and Amir Kiltgrad.
Photo: Getty Images