Judge orders additional deposition testimony by executive alleging rape

A former senior vice president of Wells Fargo who sued the bank, alleging she was raped by a colleague during a 2020 business trip, will have to give additional deposition testimony to defense lawyers, a judge has ruled.

Attorneys for the plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, sought an order preventing Wells Fargo lawyers from taking a further full-day session of Doe's deposition, or, in the alternative, to limit the questioning to topics the defense has not yet covered.

But during a hearing Monday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Tony L. Richardson noted his May 28 ruling that the deposition could proceed and that Wells Fargo lawyers say the upcoming session will last no more than seven hours. The judge also denied Doe's request to limit the areas in which the plaintiff may be deposed.

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"Plaintiff cites no authority for such an order," Richardson wrote.

In their court papers, Doe's attorneys argued that Wells Fargo's insistence on seven hours of testimony for Doe's fourth deposition, after she had agreed to an additional four hours, "is a clear indication of defendant's strategy to wear down and harass plaintiff rather than to obtain meaningful discovery."

Doe's suit, filed in February 2023, alleges her attacker was a Wells Fargo senior investment strategist and managing director who repeatedly made unwelcome advances as well as groping and sexually degrading remarks before and after the alleged rape. She says one of the alleged fondlings occurred during an October 2018 business event in Beverly Hills and that she pushed his hand away.

Doe maintains she became intoxicated with colleagues at a dinner during a Bakersfield business trip on Jan. 23, 2020. She says  that after another executive walked her back to her room, her assailant forced his way inside and sexually assaulted her.

Doe's memory of the alleged rape came back to her in fragments, according to the suit, which further contends that the man admitted that they had sex multiple times without contraceptives and also knew the plaintiff was drunk.

Wells Fargo officials did not do enough to address Doe's allegations and she was forced to resign in 2021, the suit alleges.

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