Financier sex assault is alleged
A 29-year-old female entrepreneur has accused Lucio Lanza, a 73-year-old Silicon Valley venture capitalist, of sexually assaulting her on a July 28 red-eye flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis en route to her home in Chicago.
Rachel Danae Vachata, who was on the Forbes “30 under 30 in Healthcare” list for 2018, alleged that Lanza groped her repeatedly, “grabbing her arm, crotch, and breast, attempting to kiss her, and inserting his hand between her legs,” according to a lawsuit submitted electronically for filing Wednesday in Superior Court in Santa Clara.
A call and email to Lanza’s firm in Palo Alto, Lanza TechVenture, were not returned. Nanette Collins, a spokeswoman for Lanza, said, “Lucio has
no idea what he is being accused of. As far as he remembers, he was on a plane talking with this woman about her startup.”
Vachata’s attorney, David Lowe of San Francisco, said the flight was on Delta Air Lines.
Vachata is co-founder of two companies, Mallium and Dynamic Surgical, according to her LinkedIn profile. When the flight took off, she was seated next to Lanza, who allegedly asked questions about her and her business. Before takeoff, Lanza was told he was in the wrong seat and moved to a different seat, and an off-duty pilot took the seat he vacated, the suit says.
After takeoff, Lanza returned to her row and, appearing intoxicated, “said he was close friends with Steve Jobs and talked at length about his work at Intel and his investments,” the suit said. The off-duty pilot said Lanza should return to his seat, which he did, but Lanza later came back and resumed talking to Vachata about his “connections, careers, companies, and properties,” the suit said. The pilot asked him to return to his seat again and he did, but when Lanza returned again, the pilot asked if he wanted to switch seats and they did, the suit said.
At that point, Lanza tried to kiss her, put his hand in her crotch, grabbed her breast and “went on about his power in the industry in which Ms. Vachata works and how he has the capability to ‘make or break’ her career,” the suit says. He also allegedly offered to invest in her company. The suit said at no point did she consent to any form of contact.
When the off-duty pilot later returned to his original seat, she immediately told him what had happened. When she arrived at the gate of her next flight to Chicago, she told the gate attendant she had been sexually assaulted on the previous flight. The attendant notified her supervisor, who said the incident had been noted by the airline.
As she was boarding her next flight, to Chicago, Vachata called her cofounder and related the story, the suit said. While on the flight, she “began to hyperventilate from the intense stress of the situation. She bent forward in her seat and lost consciousness. She came to as several flight attendants were leaning her seat back and trying to give her oxygen,” the suit said. When the flight landed, she was escorted off the plane and taken to emergency medical services.
Lowe said his client and at least one other person with knowledge of the incident have been contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Chicago. An FBI spokesman said by email, “We do not comment on any investigation that we may or may not be investigating until charges have been filed or someone has been arrested.”
A spokesman for Delta could not immediately confirm the incident.
Lowe said Vachata filed suit because “she wanted to use the legal system to hold him accountable.” In previous interviews, Vachata said she had been sexually molested when she was 2 and after years of abuse, became a homeless, runaway youth before finally getting a college degree.
Lanza is the latest Silicon Valley venture capitalist accused of sexual misconduct. VCs Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital, Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Dave McClure of 500 Startups and Shervin Pishevar of Sherpa Capital have left their firms following allegations of misconduct.