PRICE ACOLYTES CALL FOR LAWSUITS AGAINST HUNDRED EIGHTY DEGREES

By Doug Forbes

New York Times columnist Karen Weise published an inaccurate, incomplete 2022 exposé on FAMED GRAVITY PAYMENTS CEO Dan Price KNOWN AS THE “$70K CEO.” WEISE DOES NOT HAVE TO FACE THE FALLOUT FROM HER GRATUITOUS JOURNALISM. BUT I DO.

Weise purposefully failed to mention that I have a grad degree in journalism.

Weise simply called me a blogger, solely “fixated” on Price’s business practices while citing her own 2015 Bloomberg article as the true catalyst for Price’s temporary public relations woes.

Weisefailed to mention the reason I cared about this story was because it was an amalgam of numerous vital issues: pay equity, #MeToo, big media myopia, the runaway influence of social media and the accelerating obsession with overnight fame.

Weise failed to mention that Price’s former wife Kristi Colón had given me a 200-page compendium years earlier, in which she detailed Price’s allegedly barbaric abuse.

Weise failed to mention that Colón refused to allow me to share the revelations but allowed Weise to do so years later.

Weise failed to mention that, during such time Colón remained silent and during the years I pleaded with Weise’s former employer Bloomberg, her current employer the NYT and myriad other media outlets, Price allegedly raped, assaulted and otherwise abused upwards of a dozen other women. The full extent of his alleged violence is yet unknown. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, only 60-75% of rapes and assaults are reported.

Weise failed to mention that she wrote her 2022 piece based on what I had discovered in the first place, primarily fueled by a documentary I was developing with some partners.

Weise continues to pay no attention whatsoever to the equally profound story of Price’s massive business fraud which I uncovered. This is likely because Weise would have to take on all the deep-dive business journalism that I did for years. In fact, the business fraud remains an outrageous secret for some reason, despite the fact that if wholly reported as it should be, Price’s acolytes would see the extent of his Ponzi scheme which garnered him fame and fortune in the first place.

Weise failed to mention that Price refused to answer my inquiries or sit with me and a documentary team, because he knows I am the one person who wholly understands his fraud.

Weise failed to mention that the primary reason Price became an overnight sensation in the first place is because Weise’s employer, the NYT, failed to do due diligence on him before covering his $70K wage announcement the day he made it. The NYT fell for Price’s public relations ruse lock, stock and barrel. Price leveraged the NYT and other outlets to avoid legal scrutiny at a time when his company was floundering under his seemingly abusive and misguided leadership.

Like many of you, I was intrigued if not initially inspired by Price’s wage equity message post Occupy Wall Street. This is why I was and am involved yet again in documentary development on this story.

And because I am involved in that development, I spoke with everyone from Price’s childhood friends, mentors and employees to clients, industry partners, industry executives, attorneys, and, of course, women who included long and short term girlfriends and Price’s former wife Colón.

That’s what journalists and documentarians are supposed to do — their homework.

It was easy for Weise to call me a blogger.

It was easy for Weise to say I was “fixated.”

It was easy for Weise to not-s0-subtly imply that my articles about Price were “thousands of words long” but not detail the investigative journalism embedded in those articles.

It was easy for Weise to plunk my name way down at the bottom of her article, despite the fact that she was the one who, for years, ignored my pleas to help me report what I knew to be true.

It was easy for Weise to say that I reported “anonymous accounts,” without explaining that I did so to protect the victims and honor their wishes to remain anonymous because they were allegedly raped and otherwise abused.

And, it’s easy for Weise to hide behind the steel curtain of the NYT where she gets a nice paycheck while protected from an army of attorneys, while I have had countless people accuse me of fabricating stories for some secret agenda and call for Price to sue me.

In fact, Weise purposefully included a passage in her article which said, “Mr. Price said on Wednesday that he believed that Mr. Forbes was funded by a competitor, whom he declined to name.” This is utterly irresponsible journalism. If Price could not verify his source, she should not have included this ludicrous, false statement.

For those of you who believe I have some political agenda, you would be dead wrong. I myself returned to complete a grad degree in journalism to pursue social justice investigations through "solutions journalism.” I have avoided pursuing employment in big media for a number of reasons. One of them is that big media is largely driven by by hit-and-run articles begging for clicks and likes. I am interested in slow journalism that builds fulsome portraits of who someone is and why (s)he does what they do or why entire organizations too often do what is convenient rather than what is correct.

Having done the due diligence that nobody else did, I believe the women whose stories are consistent across the board. I also believe that, as historical precedent shows us, landing on justice is challenging in these cases. It will be very hard to prosecute Price. In fact, 95% of these cases wind up in plea bargains. especially for rich, white, notable men. Of course, Weise and others never seem to mention such things.

Sadly, Weise’s latest piece on a grand jury’s decision to indict Price on rape of an unconscious person yet again fails to address critical details. It also ran an hour after my piece published and after I told a number of persons about the grand jury decision early in the morning. I learned about the grand jury decision through an anonymous source the night before.

Kacie Margis told me more than two years ago that she and her sister were in attendance at the 2017 Las Vegas music festival when a gunman murdered 60 people and wounded more than 400. She said she subsequently suffered from post traumatic stress which included chronic insomnia. She took sleep aids to ease her suffering.

That is why Margis said she was unconscious when Price allegedly raped her at the Palm Springs Ace Hotel. Weise also failed to mention that Margis had told Price earlier that day that she did not want to have sex with him because they had some issues that she wanted to resolve before they carried their relationship any further.

Weise failed to connect the dots to another Price victim who remains anonymous but with whom I have had multiple detailed engagements about her abuse. I connected this victim to the Palm Springs prosecutor’s office to share her story, primarily because it is eerily similar to the Margis account. This victim suffered from a chronic narcoleptic-adjacent condition for which she took medication. She said Price raped her while unconscious.

Weise and big media make it appear as if they are doing yeoman’s work when they are, in fact, merely scratching the surface of the details that truly matter.

None of the Price accusers sought fame nor fortune from their allegations. All of them told me they were reluctant, if not understandably afraid, to come forward. This is entirely understandable considering how many comments even I have read on Price’s social media.

Price entices if not enlists his acolytes to suggest that I am part of some anti-progressive cabal launching a coordinated conspiracy against him. Clearly, these persons do not understand my extensive support of social justice, equity, truth.

I run a national nonprofit which, in part, deals with abuse. I’ve traveled the nation discussing such issues with a wide berth of stakeholders. My other documentary, now in post production, addresses matters of abuse.

Price’s accusers bravely came forward because they don't want other women to suffer. It’s that simple. All of these women are of different political and cultural stripes. None of them knew each other. All of them are smart, savvy, courageous, self-sufficient.

Again, this is not about politics. This is about hurting people. And it’s about a Ponzi scheme. Price is a smart man. A successful man. A talented man. A charismatic man. But smart, successful, talented, charismatic men can be sexual and physical and emotional terrorists and world-class con artists.

Dozens of people have confided in me about Price's public persona versus his private abuse and alleged fraud. Again, those people span a wide political and cultural and financial spectrum.

Nobody is yet diving into Price's business fraud as I have. According to an abundance of evidence, ever since Price’s business was floundering by 2013-14, he surreptitiously manipulated his processing fees in violation of regulations. All evidence supports the premise that he carefully crafted this "us vs. them" scheme for self-enrichment, which he also brilliantly parlayed into fame via his $70K public relations ruse.

Yes, it sucks when people turn out to be the antithesis of what you hope for. But the more I realized his story was no more than artfully crafted smoke and mirrors coupled with apparent horrific behavior, the more one realizes that Price has always been desperate for adoration, even worship. His self-help lecturer-father Ron was eventually found in violation by the FDA for his own multi-level marketing scheme.

Indeed, the apple does not fall far from the proverbial tree. But these are not details and not connections that someone like Karen Weise is going to mete out.

Perhaps we need to take a pause before we lionize people out of the gate. Perhaps we need to stop perpetuating the vitriol and revert to relying on facts instead of fiction.

I wish Price were the man he says he is and his acolytes think he is. But he is not. It is absolutely OK if you don't believe me, but if you don’t, ask yourself why you believe another guy you do not know — Price.

I have repeatedly asked Price to sit with me individually or with me and a bipartisan media source or with a documentary crew so that he could prove my allegations as false. I suggested that I would ask him detailed questions about his business practices which affect tens of thousands of his customers. I also suggested that we could address why he is publcily calling a multitude of women liars. Although Price adores media attention, he has yet to entertain any such invitations.

We’ve seen this movie before. Price is yet another in a long line of men with power who believe they are indeed invincible. Quite frankly, many of them have been and continue to be.

One last note. Price prompts his faithful to sue people like me, simply because he suggested that I am/we are perpetuating some secret agenda or because you believe that it’s unfair to accuse someone whom you admire. Ironically, such a campaign had been the very symbol of anti-progressiveness until, in recent history, it became weaponized to unfathomable depths and lengths.

I agree, justice and legislative and media systems are a hot freaking mess. I have been and remain deeply embedded in all of them for years. I’ve testified before multiple state senate and assembly committees. I’ve engaged with governors, federal lawmakers and other notable gatekeepers, and I’ve been a party to many media interviews.

This is why I believe I have the right to leave you with this... Instead of complaining from a living room, or writing anemic articles that fail to connect dots, do your homework, get involved and be judicious in your expression.