OPINION: Lies, Suicide and Open Secrets
August 24, 2022
Arguably, the most informative sound byte that Dan Price has delivered during his 7-year reign as the self-appointed Millennial frontman for worker rights is that he must “step aside from these duties to focus full time on fighting false accusations."
Price does not step aside for anything or anyone. He has aggressed against the world’s most notable business kingpins, political dealers, media lions. Certainly, he need not cease dishing his boilerplate, ghostwritten tweets to fight a cache of lying, gold-diggers financed by the far right.
Speaking of lying, paid-off gold-diggers from the far right, add me to the list. Price told the New York Times that a competitive credit card processor beefed up my checking account so that I would fabricate hit-pieces — brimming with facts — on him. All he had to do was reveal who paid me, when they paid me, how much they paid me and where they paid me. Surely he’s got the goods. He’s Dan Price, for god’s sake.
Needless to say, Price is not yet prepared to give up those goods. He has them somewhere, but he’s worried that one of his dogs ate them — one of those poor pups that drowned in his pool. Or, maybe those goods are buried under a pile of condoms on his yacht, next to the pile of motivational speaker cliff notes. Or, maybe one of the many Gravity employees that ran for the exits took the goods and won’t give them up since Price insulted his intelligence in a company-wide meeting.
Regardless, he’ll find those goods. Some day. The bottom line is, who cares anyway. For as long as he, the unassailable Saint of Seattle, puts it out there that I’m the master of mountebanks, it’s bulletproof, baby. Some day soon, right before his remaining four or five acolytes drink his kale-flavored Kool-Aid, they will shout from the rooftops that they’ve got the goods. They will prove, once and for all, I am the Trojan in the horse, the unholy destroyer of the holiest of empires.
There’s just one thing. One little thing. Defamation is an actual thing. If my attorney pinged his attorney and said, blah, blah, blah Dan Price just made a false and unprivileged statement, caused harm from that statement and acted with reckless disregard for the truth, well then, chalk up another legal action against the man who has eaten lawsuits for breakfast since he was first sued at age 19 for stealing company secrets.
Oh yeah, and according to Price’s minions, I am so far right that we might have to create a new direction. Candidly, self-professed progressives have been the most ruthless in their assault of my assertions. It’s not exactly hard to discover what I believe in, which truly is an open secret. They just don’t want to believe that either.
But look, we’re reasonable people over here in Los Angeles. And following a few consultations, we’ve decided to give Mr. Price the benefit of the doubt. So, go ahead, Dan. Hit us with the proof of our recriminations. When you do, we will repent at the tips of your Dr. Martins.
Otherwise, you can expect a knock at the door from someone holding some white paper.
Seriously though, you have enough targets upon which to focus your ire, like those good-for-nothing troglodytes who accused you of such petty imputations… like rape, beatings, choking, covertly taping, bribery, fraud.
Price doesn’t need to fight his own battles. That’s what alleged tax fraud will do for you — greatly endow your coffers so you can hire people to build a moat around your dirty work. Price’s latest cleaner is attorney Mark Middaugh who recently said, with conviction, Shelby Hayne’s allegations are “absolutely false.” In other words, Nothing to see here, folks. Case closed. Middaugh to the rescue.
I called the Palm Springs district attorney today. Public Information Officer John Hall confirmed that the DA has a case jacket on his desk right now — one with Dan Price’s name inside next to the word rape. Hall said that “no filing decision has been made… no time frame for when any decision may be made.”
Since Middaugh did not return my call for comment, one can only wonder if he’s willing to repeat, with conviction, that the Palm Springs rape allegations are also “absolutely false.” And since Hayne is a liar, she and those other pesky accusers like Kacie Margis are the real abusers.
After all, Margis is just some simpleminded “swimsuit model” per every media outlet on the planet. I mean, really, what do swimsuit models know about being raped. Sure, she’s a Cal State grad with honors, a business entrepreneur and a talented artist, but at the end of the day, our takeaway should be that she is a bikini-slinger with a chip on her shoulder.
Come to think of it, how dare Margis use the word “rape” when all Middaugh’s client did was forcefully insert his penis into her vagina while she was deep asleep after she explicitly told him she wanted no sexual contact with him whatsoever. Obviously, that’s not a “no.” By any definition, that’s a bright green light.
How unreasonable of her to think that Price wouldn’t be confused. With these so-called rape allegations, Margis has Price so verklempt that he doesn’t even have the strength to serially stalk women on Instagram.
Price recently said to the New York Times, “The accusations of inappropriate behavior towards women are false.” Price is keenly aware that words matter.
Inappropriate is when your ex-wife Kristie Colón rats on you for water-torturing her. I mean, all you were trying to do was submerge her in hot liquid long enough that she was cleansed of all her sins… like not cleaning the dishes how you demanded or not starching your shirts like an artisan or failing to remember rule 2.743 in the obedience handbook, which clearly states that rapid rounds of full-thrust punches to your wife’s abdomen are warranted after a long day at the office.
And by the way, if Hayne hadn’t had a neck, Price would never, ever, ever have clenched it like one of those mechanical carnival claws trying to pick up the prize from the bottom of the glass jar.
Like swimsuit model Margis, Hayne is another loopy artist type with a reckless, runaway imagination and sketchy credentials, including graduating magna cum laude from Pitzer College, ranked by the Princeton Review as one of the nation’s top higher ed institutions.
Middaugh’s comments about Hayne’s assertions are clear: she is a charlatan, pure and simple. Surely, Price would never swoop in for a smooch and a choke without first making her sign an airtight NDA replete with non-disparagement clause, just like all those browbeaten Gravity employees he muzzled for life.
Nonetheless, Price has since stepped aside from the sexiest job on the planet — credit card processing guy — all because a covey of accusers dares to accuse an unassailable savant.
Price is right about that. The unassailable part, not the savant part. He has indeed been relatively unassailable. Certainly, media types have not assailed him with any lasting effect.
Not once has a reporter demanded Price to confirm that Kacie Margis is lying about her rape — using that very word — “lying.” Media will not make Price confirm that Shelby Hayne is lying about her assault. Nor confirm that Kristie Colón is lying about her boundless beatings. Nor confirm that three other women are lying about Price raping them. Nor confirm that a dozen others who allege assault are pants-on-fire liars.
Media has not demanded that Price confirm his former employees are lying. Confirm that his current employees are lying. Confirm that his former friends — including those from the Seattle Sounders — are lying. And confirm that dozens of payment processing industry representatives are lying about his fraudulent, nefarious business practices.
When I first learned of Price’s allegedly abusive behavior seven years ago, it wasn’t as if I were gobsmacked. I’d already reported his business abuse which, wait for it, nobody wanted to hear about. The world was still drunk with delight that a guy who had, for years, offered shameful wages to his über-young staff would suddenly want to compensate for screwing them. What an exemplar.
A few weeks later, reporter Karen Weise — who penned for Bloomberg at the time — published a piece that rendered a brief overture about Price’s possible abuse of Colón. But after that, crickets. Media recycled Weise’s story for a hot minute. A couple months later, however, Price was back to taking showers in dollar bills and lies.
Price’s alleged personal abuse has overshadowed his alleged business fraud, including tax fraud.
My first story about Price alleged that he was able to stockpile megabucks, buy a yacht and sprawling house and party like a former Christian rock star because he concocted a pretty simple but subtle scam by which he lied to small business owners and stole from banks.
I continue to maintain that’s how he got rich. And famous. And even more predatory. An accountant source who reviewed my findings recently said, yep, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a con man pretending to be a duck.
Like good ol’ Al Capone long before him, Price won’t likely go down for savaging people, if he goes down at all. But if he does face the music, it’ll likely be because he built his kingdom on a pile of eroding sand.
I was an English major in college a hundred years ago. Math was like gene splicing to me. So, if I could understand how Price manipulated a digit to make a mint, almost anyone can. We’re working on making his scam a bit more understandable for non-gene-splicing-minds like mine. That piece is coming down the pike soon enough.
For now, I leave you with this. Inside Edition, a CBS “news” enterprise, interviewed me yesterday about Price. They also wanted me to divulge sources and/or connect them to other accusers, which I would not do. The women who have contacted me over the years, including Margis and Hayne, no longer wanted their faces plastered on fast-food-news programming. I honor that. I honor them.
A few hours later, the Inside Edition producer said my segment was cut due to programming constraints. Instead, they recycled everything that appeared in the New York Times and other outlets, including Margis and Hayne Instagram photos and how the smiley model-artist types said Price was a meanie. Inside Edition reporter Steven Fabian introduced Price as “the charismatic CEO with long, flowing hair.”
I don’t really need to go on about the gutter-journalism that this is.
But since Inside Edition joined every other media outlet on the planet in disregarding what I’ve been pleading since 2015, I’ll share here what I said in my abandoned interview.
I have a day job. I’ve had one since I happened into this investigation of Price in 2014. I worked on this story pro bono during lunchtimes, late nights and breaks from caring for my child. I did so, because I believe the abused deserve a voice as loud or louder that of their abusers.
I have also witnessed loathsome, systemic, supplemental abuse of survivors, whether that be through police departments that bury rape kits, let alone entire rape investigations, or media outlets that reduce victims to boobs and butts.
The New York Times’ reporter Weise did a good job in her recent report of tying some threads to one another and pulling on a few fresh ones. But that story would not have made it to the light of day if it weren’t for a whole series of dominoes that tumbled long before it.
Most importantly, those dominoes are actual flesh and blood persons who have suffered seemingly irreparable harm… the kind that feels like a shove between your shoulder blades toward the cliff’s edge.
Abuse survivor suicide is the real deal. Roughly one third of women who who are raped contemplate killing themselves and 13% follow through on their thoughts. And then there’s the lingering mental health tug-of-war that lingers ad infinitum.
I realize I’ve crafted this piece in a way that is not traditionally journalistic. But the truth is, I don’t give a flying “f.” I’ve been banging on this door for years. My hand and my heart are tired. Nobody answered. And so many people got hurt in the process.
According to my head, however, and an ocean-full of due diligence, Dan Price has abused an untold number of people and institutions since he was a teen. And look how he was rewarded.
White House visits. Praise from presidential candidates. Giggles and tickles with talk show hosts. Disciples who now believe extremists are targeting him for his peerless principles. Social media arsonists ready to burn down the house should their hero be exposed to even a sliver of scrutiny.
Not to mention… money-money-money-money.
The real question is if a district attorney in Palm Springs finally believes it’s time for a real judge and jury to expose the real Dan Price.
If not, some people might want to change their locks and update their résumés.