UPDATED Nov. 22, 8:25 p.m. ET: A spokesman for Mr. Goguen shared a statement with Complex to correct the New York Post’s “inaccuracies, mischaracterizations, and defamatory statements.” The full statement is provided below.
“The article published online in the New York Post Saturday was riddled with inaccuracies, mischaracterizations, and defamatory statements. Neither Mr. Goguen nor his lawyers were given a fair chance to respond, only being contacted a few hours before deadline. This was even though the article had clearly been in the works for days or weeks.
See original story from 11/20/21 below.
Michael Goguen, a 57-year-old billionaire and longtime partner at Sequoia Capital, is being sued by four former employees for roughly $800 million in damages, according to the New York Post. And with the suit, he’s being accused of having a spreadsheet of 5,000 women that he had sex with.
The allegations reportedly come after a previous settlement of $40 million with a woman who claims he “sexually, physically, and emotionally” abused her—which his attorney called a “vile collection of lies.” Documents reported by the Post now show him being accused of controling local law enforcement in the town of Whitefish, Montana, owning several “safe houses” where he takes young women to have sex, and placing a “boom boom” room in a bar that he owns to “maintain women for the purpose of committing illicit sexual activity.”
Goguen’s lawyer did not respond to the publication’s request for comment Friday.
The four people who filed the suit helped set up Goguen’s security contractor Amyntor Group LLC, with the lead plantiff being Matthew Marshall, who the Post says allegedly helped purchase “luxury homes and vehicles for members of his harem,” while spying on and “intimidating his enemies.”
“Marshall was being asked to purchase, out of his personal accounts, vehicles, jewelry, earnest money deposits on properties, and to provide cash or other items for Goguen’s mistresses, or as hush-money payoffs to Goguen’s acquaintances and employees who had ‘learned too much’ about Goguen’s sexual misconduct and crimes, and the Goguen Sexual Scheme,” court papers allegedly revealed.
Documents reportedly claim that Goguen had set up a way to listen to police communications. Women who tired to complain about his alleged sexual assaults were met with difficulty from Flathead County Sheriff’s Department. One investigation regarding a sexual assault was allegedly stopped after Goguen met with an officer who was told to take it to the FBI by Marshall, The Post shares.
“[Detective Shane Erickson] openly shared with Marshall the fact that he was spending time with Goguen, including having dinner at his house, spending time on Whitefish Lake, going on a coyote hunt,” court papers say. “Erickson also informed Marshall that Goguen had offered to take him on his yearly week-long $20,000 elk hunt in Colorado with private guides.”
The woman later reportedly recanted her story after signing a non-disparagement with Goguen. In another accusation, he is alleged to have placed a woman “and her children in a position of utter dependence based on false promises and emotional manipulation to satisfy his sexual appetite,” giving her a credit card and buying her a five-bedroom home after a divorce.
Marshall reportedly claims he’s had to “dissuade Goguen from going to extreme measures against his enemies” after he asked to arrange a man’s murder in a wikr—an instant messaging platform. Marshall accepted a plea agreement on Nov. 10 on wire fraud, tax evasion and “conning Goguen out of millions of dollars.”
“This man has to be stopped,” said retired Whitefish police chief Bill Dial, who sued Goguen in 2019 for alleged interference in his investigation, per the Post. “He’s a billionaire a la Harvey Weinstein and Epstien. There’s a lot of people in this community who know what he’s about and they’re afraid of him.”
