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Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond regularly ignored the company's policy against office romances with subordinates, a scathing new blog post alleges.
Drummond, who received $47 million in salary and equity last year according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, is the latest American executive to be called out in the #MeToo era -- with a blog post on Thursday describing an alleged extramarital affair with a former lover.
Twenty thousand Google employees worldwide walked out in protest in November after an explosive New York Times story detailed how the company protected top executives who were accused of sexual harassment -- including paying $90 million to one who allegedly coerced a subordinate into performing sexual acts.
Jennifer Blakely, a former Google manager who wrote an essay for Medium describing an affair with Drummond, who was married at the time, painted an unflattering picture of a man who didn't think twice about violating Google's policy against dating subordinates.
“David was well aware that our relationship was in violation of Google’s new policy which went from ‘discouraging’ direct-reporting-line relationships to outright banning them,” she wrote.
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David Drummond, senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer at Google Inc., in 2011. (Ryan Anson/AFP/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
The tech giant forced Blakely to transfer out of the legal department and into sales -- an area where she had no experience -- after she had a son with Drummond. She says that left her feeling depressed.
One night in October 2008, while they were living together and after attending a Palo Alto dinner with Google colleagues, Drummond told Blakey via text message that he was "never coming back."
"'Hell' does not begin to capture my life since that day. I’ve spent the last 11 years taking on one of the most powerful, ruthless lawyers in the world," Blakely wrote. "David would go for months or even years at a time completely ignoring my pleas to see his son -- not even so much as a text to us, despite living about a mile away."
Blakely didn't receive any child support until after she filed a custody suit against him several years later.
The Google Walkout organizers released a statement in support of Blakely on Twitter.
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Meanwhile, Drummond had stayed married and allegedly began an affair with his "personal assistant," according to Blakely, who wrote that he also had another affair with a former colleague of hers at Google.
Google declined comment to Fox News, but did refer to a statement that Drummond gave to BuzzFeed News, where he labeled himself as "far from perfect."
“Her account raises many claims about us and other people, including our son and my former wife,” he said. “As you would expect, there are two sides to all of the conversations and details Jennifer recounts, and I take a very different view about what happened. I have discussed these claims directly with Jennifer, and I addressed the details of our relationship with our employer at the time. ... Other than Jennifer, I never started a relationship with anyone else who was working at Google or Alphabet. Any suggestion otherwise is simply untrue.”
For Blakely, who said she was "regretful," but thankful for her son, the cultural problem at Google begins at the top.
"Women that I worked with at Google who have spoken to me since the New York Times article have told me how offended they were by the blatant womanizing and philandering that became common practice among some (but certainly not all) executives, starting at the very top," she wrote.
"Until truth is willing to speak to power and is heard, there’s not going to be the sea change necessary to bring equality to the workplace."
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