June 2, 2022
TROUBLING SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE ABOUT DAN PRICE SEXUAL ASSAULT CHARGES FAILS TO ADDRESS TRAIL OF APPARENT SERIAL BEHAVIOR
UPDATED AUGUST 21, 2022
We repeatedly informed the Seattle Times about numerous persons who contacted us about Dan Price and how he allegedly raped, assaulted and otherwise abused. The Times wanted our sources and volumes of information we acquired after years of actual investigating and building trust with myriad folks, the way journalism is supposed to work.
Yet, the Times refused to acknowledge our reporting. They refused to afford us a byline. We warned them that more victims would surface. Unfortunately, we were correct.
Shelby Hayne, the woman who filed the police report that catalyzed these new charges of assault, assault with sexual motivation and reckless driving, contacted us 36 hours after her apparently terrifying experience with Price. We, in turn, notified the Times two days later, while withholding her name.
The Times never responded to us. Last night, they published a piece on the eve of Price’s arraignment.
They flash-published a piece bereft of crucial contextual details related to the matter at hand, which is that Dan Price, the famed $70K Seattle CEO and perennial media darling, is once again accused of heinous acts.
Times reporters Sara Jean Green and Lauren Rosenblatt largely rely upon public documents available on the Seattle Municipal Court website. We knew about such documents. But to solely rely on the documents and not the actors or the history is lean reporting at best.
The journalistic way forward is to actually interview the complainant, to find and interview other alleged victims, to understand and relate the context and to do what journalists used to do, which is to investigate, not just read, reiterate and outpace or out-maneuver everyone to a breaking news story.
Hayne, who contacted us three months before the Green and Rosenblatt piece, was highly detailed in her account of abuse, which mirrored virtually every other account waged by other women who have contacted us over 5 years.
We have conducted multiple interviews with her and continue to communicate.
Green and Rosenblatt said Price is facing “charges stemming from allegations that he attempted to force unwanted kisses on a woman.” This statement is grossly misleading on its own. As we have repeatedly reported, Price does not seek to engage in a kissing contest. He demands sex, and if his demands are unrequited, he apparently assaults, rapes or otherwise abuses.
Green and Rosenblatt do not know that Price has a long, sordid history of using a car as an instrument of control. We have interviewed numerous women who have discussed how Price has tortured them in his car. He apparently lures his them into the confined space, he’s usually intoxicated, he demands sexual engagement, and if he is denied, he thereafter takes his victims on a terrifying, nail-biting, hell ride in an effort to force their compliance.
Green and Rosenblatt front-ended the article with comments from Price’s attorney Mark Middaugh who effectively said the woman was lying because purported evidence “raises serious doubts about the complainant’s credibility.”
This is a standard line of defense. Such attorneys claim the complainant, ordinarily a woman, cannot be trusted, must be deemed a liar and must lay prostrate before the real victim — the man who has been wrongfully accused. In fact, Middaugh, a Stanford Law grad who hung his own shingle only 14 months ago, chooses to ignore how, for some reason, his client is repeatedly accused of assaulting and raping women for apparently no worthy reason.
Apparently, Middaugh replaced another attorney whom Price secured soon after the police report was filed.
Not one attorney or one reporter, including Green and Rosenblatt, has discussed why any woman would falsely accuse Price of assault, rape, abuse. Not one of these alleged victims has sought financial damages, including Price’s ex-wife Kristie Colón who claimed he beat her senselessly.
Green and Rosenblatt also chose, out of context, to wage an incongruous if not troubling statement that Price apparently made two years ago in which he said, “I felt guilty in the old situation. I’m happier now. Maybe my ego took a hit, maybe my chances of getting on the Forbes list went from little to zero but it was worth it because I’m happier, I’m healthier, and the people around are [as well].”
This is a supreme example of media, yet again, devaluing the complainant while shoring up Price as saintly underdog, not as credibly, repeatedly accused assailant. One reporter after another fails to follow the breadcrumb trail to who Price actually is and why he does what he does. Instead, such reporters continue to all but kowtow to the young, white, rich, famous man with the shoulder length hair, toothy grin and nonstop penchant for public admiration.
Under the article’s last paragraph titled “Arraignment Friday,” Green and Rosenblatt barely address details about the actual arraignment or its potential consequences. Instead, they address Price’s disprovable origin story and a note about how Price succeeded in a lawsuit with his very own brother, a former partner in Gravity Payments, the business that Price now helms alone.
While the article’s penultimate paragraph mentions Price’s alleged abuse of his ex-wife, the paragraph that follows is a virtual homage to the 37-year-old’s ceaseless social media campaigns which, again, Green and Rosenblatt failed to vet.
For years, we have reported on one alleged incident of Price’s abuse after another. We have reported on how media outlets continue to fuel Price’s magic carpet ride while all but dismissing droves of those he has allegedly physically or mentally ravaged.
Hayne said that Price had his hands firmly around her throat while he demanded sexual gratification. What would compel her to lie? What would compel numerous other women to afford kindred accounts?
Will Price wrap his hands around another throat and not let go until it’s too late? Will he drive straight off the roof of a parking garage with his unwilling victim in tow? Will he begin to execute his beatings in broad daylight because a system gifts such cruelty with virtual impunity ? Will he never see a dark day behind iron bars while his apparent victims must live in the claustrophobic memory-fueled confines of his terror?
What will lawyers and judges and authorities and Price acolytes and Price family members and Price friends and countless fawning or dismissive media folks say if Price actually ends a life? We’ve seen this story too many times before to think that this is improbable, the stuff of conspiracy theory. Yet, we expect a different ending every time.
How many times does it take to say, “Wow, we never saw that coming,” before we actually admit that we did?
A partial list of the news outlets with whom I either spoke or exchanged emails as far back as six years ago, all of whom declined to pick up my reporting, except one nod from Geekwire.
ABC
NBC
CBS
FOX
CNN
MSNBC
The New York Times
The Seattle Times
The Los Angeles Times
The Boston Globe
The Washington Post
USA Today
US News and World Report
Associated Press
New York Post
The New Yorker
Huffington Post (HuffPost)
Idaho Statesman
Idaho Press
Fortune Magazine
Forbes Magazine
Bloomberg
Business Insider
The Atlanta Journal Constitution
The Atlantic
Pro Publica
Inc. Magazine
Entrepreneur Magazine
Southern California News Group (13 publications)
Geekwire
Mashable
Vox
Salon
TruthDig
Plus countless smaller market and smaller circulation outlets