#HeToo: Scientist Falsely Accused of Sexual Harassment Proves Case and Wins $6 Million Defamation Judgment

Wait until you find out what the "#HeToo" in the headline means.

'I lost everything': Ex-MIT scientist David Sabatini goes on camera for first time since $6M verdict

By Ted Daniel, Boston 25 News

BOSTON -- A Boston jury has awarded former MIT biology professor Dr. David Sabatini $6 million after finding that a former colleague, Dr. Kristin Knouse, defamed him. The verdict came years after her sexual misconduct allegations cost the renowned scientist his lab, his job, and his reputation.

Women never lie about rape or sexual harassment.

Never, h8rz. Never never never.

Do better, h8rz. #DoBetter.

The jury's verdict was announced on Oct. 16 after a three-week trial. Sabatini had sued Knouse for defamation and that she wrongly interfered with his job and his future career opportunities, according to court documents. Knouse filed a counterclaim accusing Sabatini of sexual harassment, creating a sexualized hostile environment and retaliation. The jury rejected her counterclaims.

"I lost everything. There was nothing left of my normal life," Sabatini told 25 Investigates' reporter Ted Daniel in his first on-camera interview since the verdict.
A leading scientist's fall

For about 24 years, Sabatini led a research lab at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, which is affiliated with MIT. His work focused on cell biology and its connections to cancer, aging, diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases. His breakthroughs once made him a potential contender for the Nobel Prize.

His downfall began in 2020, when Knouse, an early career postdoctoral researcher at the Whitehead, accused him of sexual misconduct and harassment. She claimed Sabatini coerced her into a sexual relationship that lasted more than a year. Arguing before the Supreme Judicial Court, Knouse's attorney, Ellen Zucker, said Sabatini had sex with Knouse while she was a student and "continued having sex with her in a way that made her uncomfortable."

...

On TikTok and across social media, Sabatini was labeled a "predator," an "abuser," and a "creepy dirtbag." When New York University considered hiring him in 2022, students and faculty protested, chanting, "What do we want? Safety!" NYU did not offer him a job.

"It was horrible," Sabatini said. "'Rapists roaming the halls of MIT' was basically what was said."

Sabatini's sued Knouse over the accusations and his firing. In court, Sabatini and his legal team, led by Lisa G. Arrowood, argued the relationship was consensual. They also presented evidence they said showed Knouse had become jealous of another woman Sabatini was interested in and had sought to have him fired.

"She took what to me was very apparent from all our messages, a fully consensual relationship," Sabatini said. "She converted that into a coercive relationship, which then you can also sort of see the escalation of that to claims as horrible as rape, and then sexual assault."

Text messages entered as evidence show some of the exchanges between the two. On Jan. 5, 2020, Knouse wrote that she would "fixate on how I'm being held as a backup and competed against other women," adding that the anxiety was "not healthy for me, my science, or our relationship." On Jan. 17, after Sabatini told her he had kissed another woman, Knouse replied, "I'll be honest and say it definitely hurts to validate some of my anxieties in light of our closeness and discussions over the past few weeks."

Here comes her #HeToo admission: A text in which she admits she was "quite aggressive" in entering his hotel room for sex, and then joking she nearly raped him: she called it a #HeToo encoujnter.

In a video deposition, attorney Arrowood questioned Knouse about other messages. Knouse confirmed that she had written, "I know what I want, and I go after it." Asked about a message in which she wrote about visiting Sabatini's hotel room late at night during a work retreat, "In hindsight, it was quite aggressive, #hetoo," Knouse said she "was just making a joke about how I was being forward in that moment."

Women never lie about rape. Never. They never use such allegations for vengeance against a lover who has rejected them.

Documents from the case show Knouse called her campaign against Sabatini "Covert Operation Dethrone." In one message, she joked about buying a "Lambo" if she won a settlement.

Below: The lying criminal who defamed him and ruined his life attempts to explain away a text in which she wrote that she was "aggressive" when she went into his rom to seduce him and then joked that she almost raped him, writing #HeToo.

In other words, he was a #MeToo victim, but he's male, so it's #HeToo.

She's joking about the rape but this casts rather a lot of doubt on her claims of being relentlessly sexually stalked by this man and "coerced" into a sexual relationship against her will.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:10 PM

| Access Comments