Editor’s note: This story contains references to sexual assault.
A Seattle-based Amazon employee is suing the company, claiming it tried to silence her after she alleged that a senior manager raped her in 2023.
Laura Danbom, who joined the company in 2017 and is still working there, told The Seattle Times that after the assault during a work trip in New York City, she alerted Amazon’s human resources department, reported the senior manager to the New York Police Department and underwent a rape kit exam.
She’s suing over the company’s response, claiming Amazon violated Washington’s Silenced No More Act, which prohibits employers from requiring workers to agree to not discussing sexual misconduct in the workplace. In a complaint filed Monday in King County Superior Court, lawyers representing Danbom wrote that Amazon conducted a “rushed, shoddy investigation” and “willfully ignored a wealth of evidence supporting the survivor’s account.”
Danbom and the firm representing her, Bloom Law PLLC, argue the company silenced her after she reported the alleged assault. The company gave her an “impossible choice,” according to the complaint. To keep her position, she needed to not speak at work about the rape allegations and to continue professional contact with the senior manager.
“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,” Jay Free, an attorney representing Danbom, told The Times.
Free said the company ignored critical evidence. The complaint says police interviewed Danbom a few days after the alleged incident and that she provided them with a condom containing DNA as evidence. Police didn’t collect a DNA sample from the senior manager to compare with the evidence.
The complaint said Amazon would reopen its investigation only if police criminally charged the senior manager, which they have not.
Lawyers for Danbom wrote that she and the senior manager had attended an Amazon-hosted open-bar event. Later, the senior manager went back to Danbom’s room with her, but she refused to have sex with him and claimed he raped her, according to Danbom’s lawsuit.
While police tried to obtain a confession from the manager days later, the complaint says that he denied the incident altogether. During another call with police, he said he was so drunk he couldn’t remember.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in an emailed statement that the company thoroughly investigates each misconduct report it receives, and takes action up to and including termination for those who have violated policies.
“We take any allegation of this nature extremely seriously, and we have zero tolerance for workplace sexual misconduct or violence of any kind,” she said.
Nantel said the company did not have further specifics to share.
Danbom is demanding a jury trial and asking for injunctive relief, aimed at ensuring Amazon employees are protected from sexual assault and that allegations like hers are adequately investigated. She’s also suing for lost wages, including back pay and bonuses, arguing the situation has stalled her career.
Prior to reporting the alleged incident, Danbom said she was on a path to promotion in her former role. She loved her team and the project she was working on, but had to transfer herself to avoid contact with the senior manager she'd accused of raping her.
“HR said they would help, but they ultimately didn’t,” Danbom said. “I had to apply to new jobs and transfer myself out to an entirely different side of the company so that I wouldn’t interact with him.”
Danbom said she considered leaving Amazon after she was told to keep working with the senior manager, saying it felt like a punishment for reporting him. She stayed with the company and went through the entire investigation process, hoping her case could be a call to action.
“I just really hope that I can empower women to speak up,” Danbom said. “Because it’s so important that we bring these things to light.”
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