It sounds absurd. Two bathrooms. Neither worked.
Not because the plumbing broke, but because they were full of luggage and cooler bags. This mundane logistical nightmare on a July 13 private jet flight became the centerpiece of a federal lawsuit last month. It involves Stefanie Bojar, a former flight attendant, and Matthew Danzeisen, the husband of tech billionaire Peter Thiel. She claims he threw heavy bags at her. He claims she is trying to extort them.
“Just because you have wealth,” says Elliott Jung, Bojar’s attorney, “doesn’t mean that you have right to just hurt people.”
Bojar says the flight from Idaho to D.C. was chaotic. The Thiel family luggage arrived in two shipments instead of one. The crew, including Bojar the pilot, had to load everything manually. The rear bathroom was stuffed with bags. The front bathroom was used to store food for a private chef. No space for passengers.
Danzeisen needed the bathroom for one of their children. A five-minute wait, allegedly, was not acceptable.
Bojar says he shoved her aside. Then he threw multiple heavy cooler bags. One struck her leg and ankle. Another hit her foot. She was knocked into the aircraft wall. She collapsed on the cabin floor, injured and shocked. Danzeisen then tossed a grocery bag into the mess, spilled food across the carpet, and shut the bathroom door with a child. He acted as if nothing had happened. The captain had to pull the bags off her.
An MRI later revealed a torn tendon in Bojar’s ankle. She required surgery.
Danzeisen offers a starkly different version. He says he was kneeling to clear soft fabric bags so his child could enter the room. He claims the first officer and a nanny saw this. He alleges the bag might have accidentally brushed her leg, nothing more. No shove. No assault. Just a minor bump that Bojar fabricated into a “grave injury” to make money. He claims she told another employee she hoped Peter Thiel would notice her limping.
The legal battle began before the incident fully settled. In May, Danzeisen filed a preemptive lawsuit. He called Bojar’s earlier demand letter part of a “campaign to extort.” His complaint asks the court for a gag order. He wants her silenced by a confidentiality agreement violation. He also argues she already collected workers’ comp. Why pay twice?
Bojar fired back with a counterclaim Tuesday. She added Thiel Capital to the mix. She is suing for battery, assault, and emotional distress. She rejects the idea that Danzeisen is her employer, which would limit her to workers’ comp. If he isn’t the employer, the suit stands. She claims Thiel Capital supervised the flight and ignored warnings about Danzeisen’s behavior.
Michael Duff, a law professor at Saint Louis University, calls the facts strange even for exam questions.
“My students would think I’d gone to far if I offered up these facts.”
This wasn’t an isolated event, according to Bojar. She claims a pattern of abuse existed. Staff warned her Danzeisen was “jealous.” They told her not to talk to Thiel or their children. She received text alerts about his mood swings. Another flight attendant reportedly quit after almost being hit with a fork by him.
So who is lying? The flight attendant or the venture capitalist? The courts will decide. Danzeisen calls it a shakedown. Bojar calls it justice for an assault. The plane took off. The bags were loaded. Someone got hurt.
The truth remains in the filing.
