Tech billionaire Michael Goguen accused of keeping 'harem' of women
‘A billionaire a la Epstein’: Silicon Valley VC is sued by four employees who claim they helped him run a harem of women across the country out of rural Montana town and that he ‘kept a spreadsheet of 5,000 women he slept with’
- Michael Goguen, 57, allegedly paid a teenager $1,200 to have sex with him
- He also is said to have kept a ‘harem’ of women whom he paid with homes, jewelry and travel
- Some of the encounters happened in a ‘boom boom’ room under a bar he owns, lawsuit claims
- Suit was filed by former employees in February asking for $800 million in damages
- Goguen was previously fired from Sequoia Capital after a 2016 assault claim
A tech billionaire allegedly kept a spreadsheet of 5,000 women he has had sex with, one of them a teenager he paid off to keep quiet, despite losing his high-profile job over a sexual misconduct allegation in 2016.
Michael Goguen, 57, a former partner at Sequoia Capital who now heads his own firm, has been sued by four former employees who say they helped manage his ‘harem’ of women.
The explosive lawsuit claims the investor met with the women at various safe houses or at a ‘boom boom’ room in the basement of his bar in Whitefish, a small town in Montana where he now lives.
The married billionaire, who has two children, once asked his employee to arrange a hit on a former friend who knew too much about his personal life, according to the lawsuit.
A retired Whitefish police chief now says that Goguen – whom he compared to serial predators Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein – ‘has to be stopped.’
These are the latest allegations of sexual impropriety leveled against Goguen, who in 2016 was accused of ‘countless hours of forced sodomy’ by his former girlfriend, exotic dancer Amber Baptiste.
Michael Goguen, 57, is the subject of an $800 million lawsuit by former employees who say they helped manage a ‘harem’ of women who were used for sex by the tech investor
Some of the encounters, which allegedly involved underage women, took place in the basement of Casey’s, a bar owned by Goguen in Whitefish, Montana
Former girlfriend and exotic dancer Amber Baptiste accused Goguen of physical and sexual assaults in 2016. A judge later dismissed her suit and ruled in favor of Goguen’s countersuit
The latest 135-page lawsuit was filed in February by former employees of Goguen’s Amyntor Group LLC, a security contractor, according to the New York Post.
It lays out a complex operation headed by Goguen to protect his simultaneous affairs. The breakdown of the operation, and the employees who helped it run, can be traced through multiple guilty pleas by former employees and associates who threatened to speak out about the alleged scheme.
Among the plaintiffs is Matthew Marshall, the former head of Amyntor who quickly grew to become Goguen’s ‘right-hand man.’
Marshall pled guilty to wire fraud and other charges earlier this month after he pretended to be an elite member of the Marine Corps and asked Goguen for money for ‘off the books’ missions, according to the Flathead Beacon.
But Marshall says Goguen, who is currently married to his fourth wife, allegedly kept a ‘harem’ of ‘numerous women, including married women, strippers, and prostitutes,’ who he bought homes for and used for ‘illicit sexual activity.’
Goguen did not immediately respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.
The tech investor is worth more than $5 billion, according to the New York Post.
He flew some of the women in his private $42 million jet.
‘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,’ the lawsuit states.
‘Goguen informed Marshall it was best to have him pay the property expenses, especially any expenses that were solely for Goguen’s safe houses, out of his personal account to avoid his then wife Jordana from discovering that Goguen owned a number of properties that he used extensively for extramarital affairs because Jordana had visibility over Goguen’s accounts at that time.’
The lawsuit, which is asking for $800 million in damages, claims various violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) act.
Goguen, who is currently married to his fourth wife, allegedly operated a series of ‘safe houses’ in Whitefish, Montana so that he could have his affairs in private
The tech investor appears to have moved to Montana to start a new investment firm after he was let go from Sequoia Capital in 2016 over Baptiste’s allegations
It accuses Goguen of offering ‘gifts’ to the women – including alcohol, travel, jewelry, cash and health care expenses – ‘to perform other deviant sexual acts with him, and/or to maintain their silence as part of the Goguen Sexual Enterprise.’
He gave one woman a credit card and bought her a five-bedroom home after her husband, a prominent businessman, found out about their affair and began divorce proceedings, according to the Post.
Goguen also allegedly gave Eric Payne, who did construction for Goguen, an office in the basement of Casey’s Bar, an establishment that he owns in Whitefish.
The office ‘was passcode protected, had a built-in full size stripper pole, and commonly referred to as the “boom boom” room where he and Payne could procure young women to engage in sexual acts with them for money, drugs or other items of value as part of the Goguen Sexual Enterprise.’
Goguen was vindictive against those who tried to put a stop to his nefarious activities, according to the lawsuit viewed by DailyMail.com.
His friend Bryan Nash called him a ‘pedophile’ after Goguen brought his two daughters to Nash’s house but later absconded with their high-school-aged babysitter to have sex with her in a cottage on the property.
The age of the babysitter is not clear.
‘Goguen threatened to kill Nash if he “said anything to anybody” about his “character flaw,” later telling Nash that he “owns Montana” and “supplies law enforcement,'” the lawsuit states.
Goguen then began having sex with Nash’s wife and paying for her divorce proceedings, allegedly costing Nash more money in a drawn out legal battle.
He used Marshall to investigate and harass Nash, who went to authorities ‘to no avail,’ the lawsuit states.
Former Whitefish police chief Bill Dial (center left) called Goguen ‘a billionaire a la Harvey Weinstein and Epstein,’ saying people in the community are ‘afraid of him’
In September 2014, Goguen texted Marshall using the encrypted texting service Wickr.
‘Nashf*** has pushed me too far and his occasional reminders he might help blow the lid off my personal life requires an extreme response. The cyber route isn’t having the impact on him that I was hoping to achieve.
‘Buddy, he’s f*****with my life, career, etc. and the potential for me being destroyed if he gets traction with the authorities or press is significant. This requires an extreme response. He will f***** destroy the “bigger picture” for us if he’s not stopped.
‘He needs to be killed. I know that’s a VERY big ask but we are in defcon 5. We can discuss details in person but we do NOT have conversations about this on our cell phones. Wickr only…’
Marshall did not try to have Nash killed, the lawsuit states.
In May 2020, Nash pled guilty to one count of blackmail after prosecutors say he threatened to release negative information about Goguen if he didn’t pay him $250,000 to cover his divorce proceedings, according to the Flathead Beacon.
Goguen is from Bedford, Massachusetts, according to the Post.
He went to Cornell and Stanford universities, where he studied electrical engineering, and joined Sequoia Capital – an early investor in Google, YouTube and PayPal – in 1996, according to his LinkedIn.
He was let go from his job at Sequoia after Amber Baptiste accused him of physical and sexual assault over a 13-year period after he picked her up at a Texas strip club, according to the Post.
She said he sodomized her for ‘six hours at a time’ and forced her to call him ‘king’ and ’emperor’ in a lawsuit asking for $40 million.
Goguen then told Marshall to act as his ‘general 100x more aggressive than Patton was, to coordinate and make sure everything is happening that should be happening — PR firms, private investigators criminal side, local PR, everything,’ according to February’s lawsuit, emphasizing the lengths he was willing to go to, and the money he was wiling to spend, to punish those who hurt him.
Back in 2016, Sequoia called Baptiste’s allegations ‘unproven and unrelated to Sequoia’ but said that Goguen’s departure ‘was the appropriate course of action.’
Goguen is reportedly worth about $5 billion. A lawsuit filed in February claims he had sex with a teenager, paid her to recant her allegation and bribed local police to keep quiet
In 2019, a judge dismissed Baptiste’s lawsuit for failing to provide relevant documents or to submit to a medical examination, according to TechCrunch.
A different judge then found that Baptiste committed fraud and extortion and granted Goguen a restraining order preventing her from repeating her claims, according to the Flathead Beacon.
The latest lawsuit does not name any of the allegedly 100 women in Goguen’s ‘harem.’
It does note, however, that he’s bought some of them homes, including a multi-million dollar home in Santa Monica, California for a woman whom he allegedly got pregnant multiple times but paid to have abortions.
Goguen’s former employees claim that Baptiste has Whitefish police in his pocket.
Retired Whitefish Police chief Bill Dial told the Post: ‘This man has to be stopped. He’s a billionaire a la Harvey Weinstein and Epstein. There’s a lot of people in this community who know what he’s about and they’re afraid of him.’
Goguen’s employees say that a detective by the name of Shane Erickson was fired after failing to investigate sexual assault allegations against Goguen while ‘improperly accepting gifts and other compensation’ from him.
The teenager, identified only as Pam Doe, was given alcohol and cocaine by Goguen, Payne and a third individual, the lawsuit states.
In an email she wrote to her lawyer, she said she had been asked to pop out of a cake at a party when she was 17, wherein after she was ‘roofied’ and asked to be an ‘escort,’ to multiple men.
During the course of his investigation, Erickson told Marshall that Goguen admitted he paid her $1,200 to have sex with him.
‘During the course of April, May and June 2018, Det. 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 and doing other leisure activities with their families,’ the lawsuit says, adding that Goguen took Erickson via private jet on his ‘yearly week-long ~$20,000 elk hunt in Colorado with private guides.’
Pam Doe eventually recanted her allegations. She was allegedly ‘forced to sign a non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreement’ and paid off.
Whitefish police did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.
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