Tiger Woods‘ former long-term girlfriend Erica Herman has accused the professional golfer of sexual harassment, according to a court filing submitted in Florida on Friday.
Herman, 37, alleged Woods, 47, had her sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) after they began a sexual relationship while she was an employee at his South Florida restaurant, The Woods Jupiter. According to the legal paperwork, reviewed by Sports Illustrated, Herman would have been fired from her job if she did not sign the agreement.
Herman and her lawyer, Benjamin Hobas, equated the threat of termination to sexual harassment.
“Mr Woods was Ms Herman’s boss,” Hobas, wrote in the filing. “On Mr Woods’s own portrayal of events, he imposed an NDA on her as a condition to keep her job when she began having a sexual relationship with him. A boss imposing different work conditions on his employee because of their sexual relationship is sexual harassment.”
Herman and her lawyers argued in an earlier legal filing that the agreement should be cancelled due to the “Speak Out Act,” a piece of American legislation enacted in 2022 that declared an NDA cannot silence a victim of sexual harassment.
In a counterclaim of his own, Woods asked to have Herman’s complaints resolved in confidential arbitration instead of a public court.
In March, Woods’ lawyer called Herman “a jilted ex-girlfriend who wants to publicly litigate specious claims in court, rather than honour her commitment to arbitrate disputes in a confidential arbitration proceeding.”
Herman and Woods reportedly dated for about five years. Since their alleged split in October 2022, Herman has filed a lawsuit against Woods claiming he violated the Florida Residential Landlord Tenant Act.
Herman is seeking US$30 million from Woods’ trust, the Jupiter Island Irrevocable Homestead Trust. She claimed she and Woods had an 11-year oral tenancy agreement that he violated when he used “trickery” to lock her out of his home in Hobe Sound, Fla.
Herman alleged Woods convinced her to go on a short vacation, only to have his trust call her once she arrived at the airport and inform her that she was not to return to the house. The legal complaint claimed Herman’s belongings were removed from the house and that $40,000 in cash that belonged to her was misappropriated. In the filing, Herman claims Woods’ representatives made “scurrilous and defamatory allegations about how she obtained the money.”
According to the legal filing, the oral agreement still had five years remaining.
She also claimed Woods and his people “attempted to justify their illegal conduct” by paying for room and board for a short time period.
Friday’s legal filing again made mention of the alleged tenancy agreement violation.
“Tiger Woods, the internationally renowned athlete and one of the most powerful figures in global sports, decided to pursue a sexual relationship with his employee, then — according to him — forced her to sign an NDA about it or else be fired from her job,” the document reads.
“And, when he became disgruntled with their sexual relationship, he tricked her into leaving her home, locked her out, took her cash, pets, and personal possessions, and tried to strong-arm her into signing a different NDA.”
In the court filing, Herman said she declined to sign another NDA.
Woods and his former wife, Elin Nordegren, divorced in 2010, some nine months after he was caught in a series of extramarital affairs that cost him blue-chip corporate sponsors and tarnished an image that had been largely impeccable.
Since then, he has had a series of injuries and surgeries, including fusion surgery on his lower back in 2017, and shattered bones in his right leg from a February 2021 crash in Los Angeles when he drove his SUV off a coastal road while driving about 136 kilometres per hour.
— With files from The Associated Press
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