Amazon Employee Alleges Rape by Senior Executive, Says Company Ordered Her to Stay Silent

Laura Danbom, an Amazon employee, has filed a lawsuit against the company in state court in Seattle. She works as a marketing and operations manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and alleges that a senior company executive raped her during an Oct. 2023 business trip to New York.

The alleged assault took place in the early morning hours of Oct. 27, 2023, in Danbom’s hotel room at the Hyatt Place on West 24th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. It followed a cocktail reception Amazon hosted as part of the trip. The man she accuses is Michelangelo Simonte, an advertising executive based in Madrid who worked in the same division as Danbom at AWS.

Danbom reported the incident to the New York Police Department (NYPD) the next day and submitted to a sexual assault forensic examination, commonly called a rape kit. She also reported the alleged assault to Amazon’s human resources department.

Washington’s Silenced No More Act and What It Means for This Case

At the heart of the lawsuit is a claim that Amazon violated Washington state’s Silenced No More Act, a law that restricts employers from preventing workers from discussing allegations of workplace discrimination, harassment, and sexual assault. Danbom alleges Amazon told her the matter was “strictly confidential” and barred her from discussing it with colleagues.

Her attorney, Jay Free, put the stakes plainly: “When an employer tells an employee that they must remain quiet about a rape in the workplace, that sends a signal to the employee that if they don’t do so, they’ll be fired.”

Signed into Washington state law in 2022, the Silenced No More Act was designed to close loopholes that let employers bury workplace misconduct through nondisclosure agreements and confidentiality directives. Danbom’s case is among the first to put the statute under direct legal scrutiny in the context of a sexual assault allegation at a major corporation.

Amazon’s internal investigation concluded in Dec. 2023, finding “insufficient evidence” that Simonte had violated company policy and characterizing the situation as a dispute with conflicting accounts. Danbom’s lawsuit describes that investigation as “rushed” and “shoddy,” alleging the company “willfully ignored a wealth of evidence supporting the survivor’s account,” including a condom containing male DNA.

The lawsuit also alleges that after Danbom reported the assault, Amazon created a hostile work environment by requiring her to maintain professional contact with Simonte and blocking what had been a clear path to promotion. Taken together, the complaint contends that the confidentiality directive, the inadequate investigation, and the retaliatory working conditions constitute violations of both Washington employment law and the Silenced No More Act.

Amazon disputed the characterization of its response. “We take any allegation of this nature extremely seriously, and we have zero tolerance for workplace sexual misconduct or violence of any kind,” the company said in a statement. Amazon added that it “thoroughly investigates each report” and takes “appropriate action, up to and including termination.” Simonte has not been charged criminally.