Former MIT scientist David Sabatini’s name cleared of sexual misconduct allegations, court asks accuser to pay him $6 million plus interest.
A Boston court exonerated former MIT scientist David Sabatini, 58, of sexual misconduct allegations brought by former colleague Kristin Knouse and asked Knouse to pay Sabatini $6 million in damages. Sabatini lost his job after Knouse brought the allegations and claimed that Sabatini pressured her into a relationship starting in 2018 when they were both working at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, affiliated with MIT.
Knouse said Sabatini created a sexualized and hostile environment in his laboratory. It is sadly a marker of our times where it is still hard for women to be believed, and still hard to call powerful men to account,” Ellen Zucker, who represented Knouse in the case, told PEOPLE. Sabatini whose cancer research generated speculation that he could someday win a Nobel Prize said the allegations severely damaged his career. Sabatini’s attorney, Lisa Arrowood, called the verdict “a moment of sweet justice” for Sabatini, adding that her client’s life “was ruined” following Knouse’s claims. “After being branded a sexual harasser over five years ago, 13 Suffolk county jurors (seven women and six men) found that David Sabatini did not sexually harass Kristin Knouse and that she defamed him by calling him a sexual predator,” Arrowood told PEOPLE.
An internal investigation found Sabatini responsible for violating the institute’s policy governing workplace relationships. He was removed from his post. Knouse who is currently an assistant professor of biology at MIT and a faculty member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, was left in tears. “It is disappointing that the jury’s verdict reflects none of this.