The former mistress of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt accused him of stalking, abuse and “toxic masculinity” in court papers filed in December 2024 seeking a domestic violence restraining order against him.
According to newly unearthed court documents obtained by the Post, Michelle Ritter filed the explosives document on Dec. 11, a week after she and Schmidt had previously entered into a written agreement requiring Schmidt to make a “substantial payment.”
She ultimately withdrew from her contract on January 6 after a new agreement was reached.
Ritter, 31, began dating Schmidt, 70, in 2021 – the billionaire helped her fund her AI startup Steel Parlot with $100 million – but by May 2024, the pair had reportedly broken up. Mr. Schmidt has been married to his wife, Wendy, since 1980, and it has long been reported that the Schmidts had an open arrangement for many years.
Ritter, a Columbia Law School graduate, claimed in the filing that Schmidt used her technical background to lock her out of his startup’s website.
She also claimed in the lawsuit that he subjected her to an “absolute digital surveillance system.”
“You literally cannot make a private phone call or send a private email without being monitored,” she argued in her filing.
“My ex-partner is extraordinarily powerful and capable and has used every means to prevent me from accessing secure data, devices, finances, business, or simply living in peace,” she claimed in the document.
Ritter also claimed in the document that Schmidt asked him to “agree to a gag order against allegations of sexual assault and harassment and to sign a false declaration knowingly that no such allegations had ever been made.”
Elsewhere in the document, she asked the court for custody of her dog, a German shepherd named Henry, and for access to Schmidt’s Bel Air mansion where she previously lived.
Schmidt’s lawyers fired back at Ritter’s claims in their own filing, calling them “patently false” and “a blatant abuse of the judicial system,” according to the newspaper.
Ritter then said in a Dec. 17 filing that she entered into an amended settlement agreement with Schmidt and withdrew her request for a temporary restraining order against Schmidt on Jan. 6.
But then she claims Mr. Schmidt failed to honor the agreement. The former technology executive claimed he could not afford $75,000 in legal fees in the pending arbitration proceeding, so he was instead trying to “win through economics and draining resources,” she claimed. A hearing is scheduled for December 4 in Los Angeles.
Mr. Ritter’s attorney and Mr. Schmidt’s publicist both declined to comment on the matter, the Post reported.
