Andy Rubin accused of cheating wife out of fortune while running a sex ring | Hacker News Reader

Andy Rubin accused of cheating wife out of fortune while running a sex ring

theverge.com

42 pointsSeanBoocock25 comments

Can we not post/comment on unproven allegations on this site? I get that this may be "exciting" and perhaps even "titillating" given who Rubin is, but come on -- the article itself says none of these allegations have been confirmed by the court.

Let's keep this as Hacker News, not the Daily Mail.

Unproven, but incredible high odds of proof. There are actual screenshots of his messages in court filings, according to Business Insider.

Secondly, this is allowed by HN. Plus, he founded Android after all. Whenever a big-name programmer has a big-name incident, of course we can comment on it here. Elizabeth Holmes? Still technically Unproven, but we all know by now.

Go here, and go to Slide 10. Pretty damning.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6180235/Rie-Andy-...

I might be missing a detail here, but how is page 10 relevant to the validity of the premarital contract?

The key argument seems to be page 4, which says that the lawyer of the wife had worked for Rubin in the past and filed a restraining order against the Rubin previous wife. The claim is that because of this the contract should be nullified because the wife did not have proper legal representation when she signed it.

Seems pretty dull and fairly common court case where a judge will make a decision to either uphold or nullify a contract based on circumstances.

Page 10 seems like a distraction because the contract did not have a "cheating clause", and regardless, the argument in the case is that the contract is invalid. If the contract is invalid then that relevance of slide 10 is unimportant, and if the contract is valid then the relevance of slide is also unimportant.

> Still technically Unproven, but we all know by now.

Your honor, I ask that juror 1000 be dismissed for cause.

Are there even any allegations of illegal behaviour? And what is a "sex ring" anyway? Is it like a swingers club, or something more sinister?

Read the article:

"As a complaint, the document is only an allegation and has not been confirmed by the court. Still, it echoes a number of details reported by the New York Times in October, including the allegation that Andy supported a string of mistresses, who would often be loaned to other men in what he described as “an ownership relationship.” The complaint alleges Andy had at least five such mistresses, including one (dubbed “M”) who was “complicit with Rubin in running what appeared to be a sex ring.”

The complaint also alleges that Andy diverted joint funds in order to make personal payouts to a number of women, payouts consistent with the Times’ reporting. According to the complaint, he stopped depositing his Google paychecks in the couple’s joint account in February 2014, shortly after he left the company amid allegations of sexual misconduct. But Andy continued to be paid by the company, subject to his severance agreement, and simply had the deposits diverted to an individual account, which made hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to other women."

Basically, consensual, but with possible manipulation (thus the sexual misconduct allegations), possible violations of higher position cannot date lower position rules, possible financial malfeasance, yeah.

Also, financial malfeasance seems to go hand-in-hand with sexual misconduct. Not everyone is guilty of one or the other, but the two show up together pretty frequently.

I did read the article first, and what I meant was: is there any allegations of illegal behaviour in relation to what the blogs are all reporting on (i.e. the sex ring).

According to the complaint:

Complaint For: - Fraud, Misrepresentation, Fraudulent Concealment - Breach of Fiduciary Duty - Aiding and Abetting Breach of Fiduciary Duty - Breach of Contract - Negligent misrepresentation - Constructive fraud - Professional negligence

There's an allegation that his wife's attorney (who had, unknown to the wife, served as Rubin's attorney in his previous divorce) conspired with Rubin to fraudulently induce his wife to sign a ridiculously unfair ("unconscionable") pre-nup, which if proven will probably have bad consequences for the attorney and get the pre-nup thrown out.

The complaint, including copy of the prenuptual agreement:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6180235/Rie-Andy-...

Obviously, due process for him, and people say weird stuff in divorce courts.

However, an accusation by his wife that he cheated her out of his earnings AND ran a sex ring? That's quite... another level of accusations. Weinstein, anyone?

Here are similar allegations from google security:

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-andy-rubin-sexual-mis...

I'm just saying, everything comes out in divorce courts. This is on a whole new level. Like, so insane, it's almost certainly true. Otherwise he could possibly sue his wife for serious defamation.

He could also sue google for defamation, presumably (unless the $90M severance package came with strings attached)

> Google's security staff found bondage sex videos on Rubin's work computer, according to three anonymous executives familiar with the incident. For that case, Rubin's yearly bonus was dinged.

That’s... weird...

They "dinged" his yearly bonus over that?

Now that IS a weird way of responding. If this had been any other employee, male or female, would this have been received "only" with a ding in pay?

I don’t see the issue really. He basically watched porn on his work machine, while off the clock.

"In an email to employees on Thursday, CEO Sundar Pichai said the following:

"In recent years, we've made a number of changes, including taking an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority: in the last two years, 48 people have been terminated for sexual harassment, including 13 who were senior managers and above. None of these individuals received an exit package.""

- Well, then, sure, none of THOSE employees got an exit package. But Rubin sure did. And he got an exit package so large, that it could be divided into 13 pieces and still have all of those execs happy.

I don't see any relevance to comparing him to Weinstein?

Weinstein got away with building a multibillion dollar business while being, according to accusations, an incredible sexual predator - all while evading detection.

It appears Rubin has done the exact same thing. Instead of the movie business, the phone business.

I'm not seeing any allegations or evidence of him being a sexual predator. Weinstein was accused of rape by several women and had many other women accusing him of other sexual misconduct.

> all while evading detection

Evade nothing he had a small army of people enabling and covering for him.

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