Noelle Nielsen, one of the women who claims to have brought the alleged sexual assault and harassment issues at eXp Realty to light back in 2020, is claiming that the company has retaliated against her, in a new lawsuit filed last Thursday.
Filed in Minnesota District Court in the County of Hennepin, the suit names eXp Realty, eXp World Holdings, Glenn Sanford, James Bramble, Brent Gove, Parker Pemberton and Pemberton Homes as defendants.
Nielsen, a broker in Minnesota, began her career in 2014 and joined eXp in 2019, after running her own independent brokerage with roughly 20 agents. She was recruited to eXp by Michael Bjorkman and David Golden, who are defendants in some of the sexual assault and harassment suits involving eXp Realty. According to the complaint, Nielsen was the whistleblower for allegations in the Acevedo suit, as well as others.
Bjorkman is no longer with the company and Golden has since been suspended.
According to the complaint, in late 2023, she learned that the defendants had allegedly been “secretly and systemically retaliating against her for years due to her reporting of sexual harassment and other serious misconduct and illegal activity in 2020.”
Nielsen allegedly confronted the defendants about this, however, instead of making amends, the complaint claims that “eXp doubled down on its efforts, refused to help Nielsen, and in fact told her that no one at corporate was allowed to speak to her anymore.”
The defendants did not return a HousingWire request for comment.
Nielsen alleges blacklisting
According to the complaint, this retaliation came in the form of “blacklisting” her to prevent her from obtaining any speaking opportunities, and blocking her from attending eXp leadership events, which she claimed stifled the potential growth of her business at eXp. The suit contends that she is not the only whistleblower being retaliated against.
She claims that this effectively ended her career with the company. Additionally, she claims that eXp “withheld what is believed to be hundreds of thousands of dollars” owed to her via eXp’s revenue share program.
“Had eXp and defendants treated Nielsen fairly and not forced her out, she would have continued to earn significant monthly income from the revenue share program indefinitely,” the complaint states. “Instead of protecting Nielsen’s revenue share payment, defendants facilitated Pemberton taking Nielsen’s revenue share payments.”
Alleges illegal drug
According to the complaint, Nielsen was informed by another agent that both Bjorkman and Golden were trying to obtain illegal drugs while traveling for an eXp event in 2020. Unable to report the issue to her immediate sponsors, as was the protocol, Nielsen said she reported the issue to Gove, who was higher up on the sponsorship line.
“None of the agents who Nielsen reported to seemed concerned,” the complaint states.
In addition to the illegal drugs issues, Nielsen also said she considered reporting a rules violation of an agent using an outside recruiter to recruit agents, which is against the company’s policy.
“Corporate’s response was that Nielsen should think hard about whether she really wanted to report a violation and open a can of worms,” the complaint states. “Based upon the conversation, Nielsen decided not to report the rules violation because the potential fallout would not be worth any potential upside.”
Reported alleged sexual assault and harassment
In the fall of 2020, Nielsen began reporting incidents of sexual assault and harassment, committed by her sponsors Bjorkman and Golden. According to the suit, she reported these incidents to eXp’s then president Michael Valdes, who left the company during the spring of 2024, filing a memorandum about the incidents at his request. Additionally she asked to change sponsors, but this request was denied in November by eXp general counsel Bramble.
Based on this experience and that of the women she helped report incidents of sexual assault, Nielsen says she believes that eXp failed to properly investigate the 2020 incidents, and that eXp continued to pay Golden and Bjorkman even after the 2020 incidents were reported.
Additionally, Nielsen claims that Golden and others who had previously been involved in the sexual harassment of herself and others were able to sit near her at events hosted by Gove “creating a very uncomfortable atmosphere.”
An alleged jump in attraction numbers
After leaving eXp in April 2024, Nielsen claims that the company held a meeting about her in her home state of Minnesota, hosted by Pemberton. She believes that this meeting led to “a significant jump” in Pemberton’s attraction numbers.
“Seemingly overnight, Pemberton has added hundreds of new agents to his organization,” the complaint states. “eXp was still emailing Nielsen influencer reports at this time. Nielsen reached out to one of her former agents asking if the upline had been changed. It was confirmed that Pemberton was not listed in the agent’s upline in the place where Nielsen used to be.”
Nielsen contends that eXp’s offer of realignment to her front-line agents “further substantiates” that the company “took action to remove her.”
Although she has left eXp, Nielsen claims that the company’s retaliation against her continues, most notably via a 10-hour deposition for the Acevedo case, which she argues was “clearly designed and intended to harass and break [her] down.”
Nielsen is demanding a jury trial and is asking the court for treble damages, as well as restitution for the allegedly withheld revenues and profits owed to her.
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