AMBI Distribution CEO Andrea Iervolino Sued For Sexual Battery

AMBI Distribution CEO Andrea Iervolino Sued For Sexual Battery

A woman is suing AMBI Distribution founder and CEO Andrea Iervolino for sexual battery, claiming that he made unwanted sexual advances during a 2015 meeting and later touched her inappropriately.

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According to the suit filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court (read it here), Anna Jane Edmonds was working as a development executive and focusing on a film-funding deal when a director she had worked with introduced her to AMBI Distribution and Iervolino. Edmonds said that she later agreed to meet with him in April 25 at a Beverly Hills hotel. An industry colleague who was a mutual friend also was present at the meeting, which the plaintiff says was set up to “foster the business relationship with AMBI and Iervolino and obtain funding for her current work.”

“Throughout the evening,” the lawsuit states, “Iervolino sat next to Plaintiff and engaged in unwelcomed and inappropriate touching and conversations sexual in nature with Plaintiff. Specifically, Iervolino talked to Plaintiff about women’s conduct in the bedroom, showed Plaintiff pornography videos on his phone, and asked Plaintiff to stand up and walk around to show off her legs in front of him. He sat beside Plaintiff in the lobby and pressed his head on her shoulder, pressing Plaintiff into the armrest of the couch. Iervolino also asked Plaintiff to spend the night with him, which Plaintiff declined. Plaintiff did not consent to any of Iervolino’s conduct throughout the evening or his sexual requests.”

The suit adds that later that night, soon after their mutual friend left, Edmonds ordered an Uber to take her home and Iervolino walked out with her. “Iervolino then pressed Plaintiff against the Uber vehicle,” she claims in the filing. “Without Plaintiff’s permission or consent, Iervolino shoved his hands up Plaintiff’s dress between her legs, and touched her in between her legs and into the crack of her buttocks towards her anus.”

Edmonds said she then got into the Uber and left but was “emotionally distraught, shocked and distressed at what had occurred, and began crying in the Uber after the encounter.”

Deadline has reached out to AMBI for comment but has yet to hear back. The company is not named as a defendant in the case.

Alleging gender violence and sexual battery, Edmonds is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and a jury trial. She is represented in the case by Jennifer A. Clingo of the Clingo Law Group in Century City.