Suit: Tech CEO Led Me Into 'Dark Abyss of Sexual Horror'

Christian Lanng, ex-chief of Tradeshift, has denied the rape, torture, harassment allegations
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 13, 2023 9:00 AM CST
Suit: Tech CEO Led Me Into 'Dark Abyss of Sexual Horror'
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/DragonImages)

The former executive assistant for a fired tech CEO has now filed a lawsuit against him alleging he made her sign a "slave contract," then harassed, tortured, and sexually assaulted her. Per the Mercury News, the complaint against Christian Lanng, who was fired from business software company Tradeshift in September, alleges that Lanng made the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, put her signature to the nine-page contract just a few months after she started working for him—the beginning, she claims, of her descent into "a dark abyss of unwanted sexual horror."

Among those horrors, per the suit: The woman accuses Lanng of "inflicting physical pain on her by various means, urinating on her, and routinely penetrating her person with foreign objects." Some of the requirements of the woman's contract, according to the complaint, included keeping her weight in a satisfactory range for Lanng, dressing in a "proper, feminine way," and wearing a "collar" indicating she belonged to Lanng. "The Master will work to shape the slave towards his goal of the perfect woman," the document is said to note.

Acceptable discipline for the woman was also laid out, including spanking, slapping, humiliation, caning, and electric shock. "The slave agrees to always taking her punishments without being angry, sullen or frustrated with her master and thank him after," the purported contract says. Doe says that after she complained to HR about Lanng's alleged actions, she was the one who was fired in 2020. Per an October release cited by KRON, Tradeshift let Lanng go this past September due to "gross misconduct on multiple grounds."

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At the time, Lanng issued his own statement, per TechCrunch, noting, "I refute the statement made this week by Tradeshift. There has never been an HR case, complaint, or formal allegation filed against me" at the company. The complaint alleges the plaintiff was left "bedridden and in a precarious psychological state for almost two years," with pain and PTSD that continues to this day and bills that have soared into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for her medical and mental health care. She's suing for restitution, lost wages, and damages, though it's not clear how much. (More enslavement stories.)

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