A woman suing mega-brokerage eXp and several high-profile recruiters just added a cascade of new accusations and allegations to her lawsuit, claiming that the company and its founder, Glenn Sanford, ignored extensive reporting on sexual assaults committed by two eXp agents—Michael Bjorkman and David Golden—despite public statements by Sanford that eXp had no knowledge of the incidents until much later.
Anya Roberts, a former eXp agent who says she was drugged and assaulted by Golden and Bjorkman at two separate company events, provided evidence that eXp was informed of Bjorkman and Golden’s alleged practice of preying on women as early as 2020, but claimed the company worked hard to protect the men while refusing to take any action on multiple, detailed reports of rape at company events.
An eXp spokesperson did not address detailed questions from RISMedia seeking clarification on when the company became aware of Golden and Bjorkman’s alleged assaults, or regarding several other incidents alleged in Roberts’ complaint, including a 2022 board meeting where a proposed plan to take action to address the assaults was ignored, and a conference call featuring top eXp agents who joked about the reports of rape.
The case is the second of two closely related lawsuits filed by current or former eXp agents making substantially the same allegations. The first lawsuit is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in 2025.
“eXp Realty has zero tolerance for abuse, harassment, or misconduct of any kind—including by the independent real estate agents who use our services,” the spokesperson said.
Also revealed in the new complaint is a lawsuit filed by Bjorkman this past April against Sanford and eXp, alleging breach of contract due to the company’s refusal to continue paying him revenue share—though Roberts also claims she has evidence that eXp broke its own rules to dole out more than $1 million to Bjorkman, even after the allegations against him came to light.
Sanford has stated publicly multiple times that eXp only learned of some of the allegations through court filings in early 2023, which Roberts claims is not true. Reports of Bjorkman drugging and assaulting women go back more than a decade, according to the lawsuit.
Bjorkman did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment. He continues to practice real estate in Ventura County. Golden did not return messages seeking comment.
Roberts herself has left eXp, the real estate industry and the country due to “extreme emotional distress” caused by the assaults and subsequent “pressure campaign” by Golden to recruit her into his “downline,” which would have allowed him to benefit from her recruiting efforts for the company.
Roberts’ latest allegations add to a laundry list of ugly, lurid revelations regarding culture and practice at the mega-brokerage, and specifically how the company handled complaints about Bjorkman and Golden. Both have denied wrongdoing, though Sanford said on a 2023 earnings call that incidents involving the two were “on the wrong side of the law.”
Bjorkman was arrested in Las Vegas and charged with sexual assault in 2021, but those charges were dropped. Plaintiffs in the first case accused another high-profile eXp influencer, Brent Gove, of interfering in the investigation and soliciting witnesses to make false statements to the police.
eXp and Sanford were both dismissed from Roberts’ lawsuit last month, with a judge ruling that she had not convincingly argued that either had “constructive knowledge” of Bjorkman and Golden’s pattern of sexual assaults, or that they had benefited from the men’s actions. The updated complaint is intended to rectify these “deficiencies,” Roberts’ lawyer previously told RISMedia, and an attempt to hold Sanford and eXp liable under federal sex trafficking laws.
According to the updated lawsuit, eXp received a memo in October 2020 that provided a description of Golden and Bjorkman’s “practice” of drugging and assaulting women in “granular detail,” and how they would embarrass or shame the women in order to get them to name one of the men as their “sponsor” in order to increase their revenue share income through eXp’s complicated recruiting incentives.
This 11-page memo, written by an unnamed “top” eXp agent, according to the lawsuit, covered several specific incidents involving Bjorkman and Golden which would later come up in police reports and investigative reporting, as well as previously unreported drug use—including overdoses—occuring at company events.
“One week after eXp received a copy of the Memo…rather than taking any action against Bjorkman and Golden, Sanford and Gove offered Bjorkman their encouragement and support, all while ignoring the pleas from those assaulted who were asking eXp, Sanford, and Gove for help,” the complaint reads.
At roughly this same time, eXp convened a conference call with “Alpha Agents” to discuss the “situation,” Roberts claimed. On that call, “several” of the participants joked about the allegations, including making comments like “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
Gove is a central figure in both lawsuits, with his downline making up 80% of the entire revenue share program, according to Roberts’ complaint. Gove was also personally involved in numerous key incidents, and lobbied (or threatened) Sanford in order to protect Bjorkman, Roberts alleged.
Roberts also claimed that Gove is continuing to put pressure on her, messaging agents she has recruited to the company in order to disparage her personally.
An attorney representing Gove said he “will not be making any comment or statement with respect to the claims or rulings” in the lawsuit.
Roberts also provided further details about an incident first reported by the New York Times, where in 2022 a member of eXp’s board urged the company to adopt a comprehensive plan to investigate the reports of sexual assault and create explicit polices around that kind of misconduct. That proposal was “ignored,” according to Roberts, but in 2023, after allegations became public, Sanford adopted “the exact plan” he had been presented with before.
The board member who proposed the plan was not asked to return to the board, according to Roberts.
Cause and effect
Both lawsuits are attempting to connect the actions of Bjorkman and Golden to the company at large, and allege that due to the emphasis on recruiting and revenue share at eXp, agents should be treated as employees rather than independent contractors.
They also seek to prove that Sanford, eXp and other top-level recruiters benefitted from the actions of Bjorkman and Golden—a key point in the lawsuit, as the federal sex trafficking law Roberts and the other women are relying on requires a tangible benefit for a person or entity to be held liable.
eXp has repeatedly denied that it or Sanford acted inappropriately, and has promised to defend the allegations in court.
In the first lawsuit, a judge ruled that plaintiffs had convincingly argued that Sanford and eXp stood to benefit from the “venture” that Bjorkman and Golden allegedly relied on to recruit women to their downlines, and could be sued. In Roberts’ suit, the connection was not clear, the same judge said, and dropped Sanford and eXp—though he explicitly allowed them to add new allegations and evidence to reallege that connection.
In the updated filing, Roberts sought to explain how Gove, Sanford and eXp had a stake in her recruitment, saying that Golden and Gove were motivated to “poach” her from her initial “sponsor” at the company in order to benefit from her recruiting skills. Roberts herself was seeking to find someone who could help her reach a higher level in the recruiting chain, according to the lawsuit, after finding herself limited by her initial upline and region.
“Gove stressed…that the sole path to success at eXp was not by selling real estate, but rather, by attracting more people to join eXp,” the lawsuit claims. “Roberts felt stuck, and Golden and Gove offered her a solution.”
After the alleged assault, Roberts claims that Golden aggressively sought to get her to change sponsors, and claimed he had convinced the company to break the rules and allow her to name him as her new sponsor.
Roberts never ended up signing with Golden, but the lawsuit claims that moving Roberts into his “revenue share group” would have helped make her an “Alpha Agent…who disproportionately generate(s) income into eXp’s Revenue Share Plan, of which Gove and Sanford are two of the primary beneficiaries.”
Although Roberts was already in Gove’s downline, she claims another top eXp agent was essentially blocking her from reaching certain recruiting milestones, and without support from a different top agent (like Golden), Roberts would not be able to bring in that revenue.
According to the lawsuit, less than 0.3% of eXp agents receive more than half of the income generated by the revenue share program, with “Alpha Agents” taking in $215,000 a month on average. In 2022, there were only 61 agents in this category, according to Roberts, out of over 80,000 total working for the company. Three-quarters of eXp agents pay more in fees to eXp than they receive in revenue share, with the average agent outside of the “Alpha” group making $625 a month, Roberts claimed.
The other key point besides benefit is the relationship between eXp agents and the company, with Roberts arguing that Sanford and eXp should be considered employers of Bjorkman and Golden based on their roles being more recruiter than real estate agent. That would be a significant departure from how real estate agents are treated under the law currently, with independent contractor status denoting a very different set of rules and responsibilities.
“Bjorkman and Golden were required to be licensed Real Estate Agents, but no special skill was required in the recruitment aspect of the multi-level-marketing aspect,” Roberts argued. “The services rendered by Golden and Bjorkman as ‘Alpha (A)gents’ was integral to the eXp business model…(w)ithout this role, eXp, and its multi-level marketing model fails.”
The lawsuit notes that eXp agents are automatically enrolled in the revenue share program, and top recruiters have “managerial” responsibilities. It also notes that agents are required to use company branding and marketing materials.
