Venture capitalist Michael Goguen and exotic dancer Amber Baptiste met at a Dallas strip club in the early 2000s and started spending time together.
That’s about all they agree on.
Baptiste says Goguen sexually abused her for more than a decade and then reneged on an agreement to pay her $40 million to halt a personal injury lawsuit, according to her March 8 breach-of-contract lawsuit. Six days later, Goguen countersued saying the relationship was consensual and alleging that Baptiste tried to extort him because he declined to make a greater commitment to her.
The legal battle -- punctuated with revealing photos, salacious text messages and explicit descriptions of sexual acts -- has rocked the venture-capital industry, already stung by criticism that it treats women poorly. Sequoia Capital, where Goguen worked for almost 20 years, parted ways with him once Baptiste’s suit became public. While the firm tweeted that the allegations against Goguen were “unproven and unrelated” to the firm, it said, “Nevertheless, we came to the decision that Mike’s departure was the appropriate course of action.”
Human Traffickers
In her complaint, Baptiste portrays herself as a victim, brought to America by human traffickers and sold as a dancer to a strip club. Goguen, a graduate of Cornell and Stanford universities, was a partner at Sequoia, a venerated Silicon Valley VC that backed pioneering companies such as Apple, Yahoo! and Google.
Goguen says they started seeing each other no more than a few times a year, mostly at Baptiste’s request. Baptiste says after meeting in the strip club Goguen repeatedly contacted her, promising that if she went out with him he’d help her break free of the human traffickers. Goguen, who married and divorced multiple times during the relationship, says he felt sorry for Baptiste and wanted to help her leave the life of an exotic dancer.
Over the following decade, they formed a relationship that Goguen said Baptiste welcomed and pursued. Time and again, he said, she wrote seductive e-mails and sent him sexually provocative photos of herself. She called him “the most amazing man I have ever met,” according to a text message cited in Goguen’s suit. “Your manner is so sweet and delicate.”
Graphic Details
Baptiste says Goguen forced himself on her from the beginning, performed lewd acts and turned her into a sex slave. Her lawsuit includes graphic details of alleged coercion, including an incident in 2012, when she says she was sodomized and left bleeding in a London hotel. Goguen confirms the London rendezvous but claims the acts were consensual and cites as evidence e-mails from Baptiste, including one that says: “I promise promise it is not your fault . . . I was a willing participant in this accident.”