
Longtime VC Michael Goguen hit with explosive lawsuit - jstreebin
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/11/longtime-vc-michael-goguen-was-just-hit-with-an-explosive-lawsuit/?ncid=rss
======
nodesocket
Here is the full official complaint. Warning, it is very textually graphic.

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/304104968/Goguen-Baptiste-San-
Mate...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/304104968/Goguen-Baptiste-San-Mateo-
Court#scribd)

~~~
w1ntermute
Link to original PDF:
[http://openaccess1.sanmateocourt.org/getpdf/pdftemp/20160312...](http://openaccess1.sanmateocourt.org/getpdf/pdftemp/2016031215474009627/A-0001312719-1.pdf)

------
CydeWeys
Human sex trafficking over a period of over a decade? Holy shit, yes, that is
a very explosive lawsuit. I thought the headline was overstating things but if
anything it's the opposite. No wonder he was fired within the day.

~~~
Johnny555
She's not accusing him of sex trafficking, she didn't meet him until she was
already in the USA:

 _she is described as a “victim of human trafficking since she was 15.” It
says that she was “brought to America in 2001,” “sold as a dancer to a strip
club,” and that shortly after her arrival, she met Goguen at a Texas strip
club and was soon submitting to his “constant sexual abuse” and “relying on
his promise that he would help her break free of the human traffickers who
held her in perpetual debt.”_

~~~
CydeWeys
He was aware of and took advantage of human sex trafficking. I never said that
he brought her into the country himself. But he acted to perpetuate the
system, which isn't much better.

~~~
evunveot
The lawsuit alleges he did these things. They shouldn't be stated as facts at
this point.

~~~
revelation
It also seems to "allege" that he already paid $10M. That would be an odd
thing to falsely claim, no?

~~~
nedwin
He is claiming he was being extorted.

~~~
mrgordon
Innocent people usually don't pay millions in extortion money though

~~~
cheez
This is false.

Someone might pay millions of dollars to avoid making a spectacle that
refocuses their efforts on something they are not interested in dealing with.

"You wouldn't want your wife and business partners to find out that you have a
girlfriend, would you?"

~~~
mrgordon
I don't know how it could be false when I said "usually" (and thus I don't
particularly appreciate the downvote). I'd like to see a list of known cases
where someone paid $40 million to hide an affair and had nothing illegal to
hide. I suspect it is quite short.

If she was under the age of consent, then he either didn't sleep with her and
thus had no reason to pay any money or he did and he broke the law. Right? At
that point, he wouldn't have only been paying to hide it from his wife and
Sequoia but also the government and hence wouldn't be innocent.

~~~
cheez
I don't know how to respond to such a comment, why say anything if you can
just weasel out of it?

You're saying he did something illegal. OK.

As someone who frequents HN, you are no doubt aware that people "settle"
without going to trial many times. Perhaps he did the math and figured it
wasn't worth his time.

See this for what it is: a divorce, without a legal marriage. She's pissed,
he's just trying to move on.

------
nodesocket
Michael's response:

[https://t.co/kZiaYd076U](https://t.co/kZiaYd076U)

~~~
kelukelugames
Michael's supportive friends are a bit much.

"You go Mike! I hate extortionist. You gave her $10M and she wanted more, LOL
... wtf ?!? and she can leave any time. Karma will bite her."

I don't know what it's like to be rich and powerful but I can't imagine an
innocent person paying $10 mil in hush money. Though asking for 30 more might
look bad in front of a jury.

~~~
flylib
a potential theory is he paid her the money to not tell his wife/kids who knew
nothing of the affair, obviously extremely ill advised but plausible

------
CptJamesCook
Michael Goguen appears to be on Twitter attacking Sequoia:
[https://twitter.com/negars](https://twitter.com/negars)

It's not clear that he realizes this account can be traced to him, however.

~~~
bhaumik
How do you know it's him?

~~~
AndyNemmity
The earliest tweets on the account send messages to Amanda Goguen

~~~
harryh
For reference, since whoever appears to own the account has deleted the old
tweets (which are a bit odd):

[http://cloud.harryh.com/0x111B1K2c0p](http://cloud.harryh.com/0x111B1K2c0p)
[http://cloud.harryh.com/2d331L3L080E](http://cloud.harryh.com/2d331L3L080E)

------
forgetsusername
Crazy stuff, indeed. Scumbags at every level of society.

------
x5n1
Well she got 10 mil out of it. So either way, nothing for me to be concerned
with, justice will be done. This is simply a money matter.

------
kafkaesq
Curiously, as of a few minutes ago, this thread has been no longer visible on
main HN page -- despite its high ranking, and obvious relevance to the HN
community.

~~~
dang
It was flagged by users. That's why most items that drop in rank drop in rank.

------
bitL
Smells fishy - 13 year ongoing abuse? In the States where one can just walk to
the police freely? After paying $10M out of $40M extortion to her? Stripper
with only one sexual partner? Red lights everywhere...

How is it possible to terminate a guy in the US with unproven allegations?
Guilty by default? I am not saying he isn't, but was there a due process
already?

~~~
CydeWeys
Do you really not understand how human trafficking and slavery works? Getting
out of that situation is not nearly as easy as "just going to the police".
There's lots of books on the subject you can read to learn more.

> How is it possible to terminate a guy in the US with unproven allegations?

At-will employment. Anyone can be fired at any time for any reason. Innocent
until proven guilty applies to the legal system, not to employment.

~~~
makomk
For the most part, sex trafficking doesn't seem to work - it's one of those
things that exists more in the media than reality. There's a huge activism
industry and massive amounts of police work around it, but when you dig into
the details there's just nothing behind it all. Statistics fall apart -
supposed US government stats are just them reporting that the press said
something, which was a quote from some politician's speech with no apparent
basis, and so on. High-profile stories with films and activist organisations
around them like Somali Mam are verifiable lies. Busts actually just arrest
the women who are having sex for money. Time and time again, there's just
nothing actually there.

Honestly, it's probably just not viable. Too high on the police priority list
and involves the victims interacting with too many people not in on the
operation. Normal labour trafficking is so much safer

------
dkarapetyan
Can we please stop submitting and upvoting things like this. There is
literally zero value in articles like this. These are no better than national
inquirer articles and should just be banned wholesale.

I've already flagged. If a few more people flag it it will drop off the front
page.

~~~
wpietri
I strongly disagree. There is always value in policing the powerful.

If we're going to celebrate the wins (and we should), we have to soberly
examine both the losses and the externalities. If these accusations are true,
it is our industry that gave him the wealth to cause this kind of harm.

~~~
dkarapetyan
Are you going to police the entire industry from your keyboard? Everything
laid out in the article is already being handled by the judicial system.
Sideline gawking is not adding anything.

I agree the VC system and the start-up ecosystem in general should be more
decentralized and sustainable but that is beside the point. Sensationalized
articles like this that only work because of people's morbid curiosity are
hardly the way to galvanize such change.

~~~
x0x0
they add opprobrium

