Los Angeles Entrepreneur and investor Jessica Mah is involved in bitter legal disputes with two former managers of his company and with Global Ventures, a company led by Justin Caldbeck, an eminent venture capital of Silicon Valley which admitted having sexually harassed women’s investors in 2017.
In a lawsuit brought by the Los Angeles Superior Court this week, Mah accused Caldbeck of having sexually harassed him and of seeking to defame it on a dispute concerning an investment he made in a business entity that she controlled.
Meanwhile, in three distinct proceedings, two former senior leaders of the Mah investment company, Mahway – former financial director William Mulholland and former Walter Delph president – as well as Caldbeck DGV, made a wide range of allegations against Mah.
These include complaints from the three that she diverted the funds from the company, in particular to pay a new private jet and trips to Burning Man; Delph claims of inappropriate sexual conversations in the workplace and discriminatory comments on elderly workers; And Mulholland’s demands of a hidden romantic relationship between Mah and the former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt.
Mah, who says that she programmed from the college, was presented on the “30 Under 30” list of Forbes in 2012 and appeared on the first page of the Int magazine in 2015. She founded Indinero, a fintech startup which created a financial dashboard for companies, then her company VC called Mahway, which she called “Builder de l’Aventure.
Caldbeck, who also worked at Bain Capital Ventures and Lightspeed Ventures, resigned from the fund he founded, Binary Capital, in 2017 after a group of women shared accusations of sexual harassment. Caldbeck admitted his inappropriate behavior towards founding women and investors.
On Friday, in a statement, Mah said that she had spent months trying to resolve the dispute with Caldbeck in private before lodging a complaint.
“I recognize the risks and the counterpouss that can follow, and I made peace with the consequences,” she said. “This is not a step that I take lightly. I think you have to do business with transparency, responsibility and clarity – and I will always defend these values, whatever the discomfort.”
In a statement sent by email, Caldbeck’s spokesperson Sallie Hofmeister, denied allegations of sexual misconduct.
“Mr. Caldbeck has never made sexual advances towards Mrs. Mah,” she wrote.
In his complaint, Mah alleys that Caldbeck harassed her sexually in 2022. “After consuming several glasses at a business meeting at the Pendry hotel restaurant in West Hollywood, California, Mr. Caldbeck hit the highest part of Mrs. Mah’s thigh and put his hand next to her genitals,” said the complaint. This alleys that Caldbeck asked Mah several times if she was sexually interested in him and discussed her sexual relations with other women.
Mah alleys in the trial that Caldbeck induced his own investors on the nature of his investment in one of his entities, then “shouted and asked him that she immediately paid her initial investment three times”. When she refused, said the costume, he told her that “I’m going to destroy you” and defamed it to the others.
His complaint alleys extortion, sexual harassment and defamation, among other complaints.
The three cases against Mah, deposited at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday and Thursday by the law firm based in San Francisco, Sawyer & Labar LLC, accuse him of poorly using business funds to pay his personal life. The statements include variously the rental of a Lamborghini, vacation trips to Burning Man and Park City, covering the rent for his house, paying personal leaders and landscaping services and paying a personal jet despite the employees’ objections.
Hofmeister, also spokesperson for Mulholland and Delph, refused to comment on their lawsuits.
“Mah is more interested in living a glamorous lifestyle ersatz than in investing,” said the complaint of the DGV. “The result of the failure of Mah’s duty was predictable for the company and its investors: investments were not as fruitful, making no real progress, while Mah seduced investors with misleading and often contradictory representations in the reports of quarterly investors.”
Delph’s complaint alleys that workers had to work at Mah’s home and that his sexual friends and partners would visit themselves during the working day and walk “at various undressing stages”. Mah would talk about sexual meetings with his employees, equivalent to sexual harassment, indicates the costume. Delph also alleges that Mah called him an “old man” and “ridiculed” because of his age.
Mulholland’s complaint alleges that an investor in Mahway complained that Mah had “hidden his former sexual relation with Eric Schmidt, the largest investor of Mahway and former CEO of Google, in order to make Mahway appear as a legitimate investment opportunity.” A Schmidt spokesperson refused to comment on the alleged relationship.
DGV’s complaint says that Mah “induced” the company by wrongly believing that the Schmidt family office had invested in Mahway. However, Schmidt’s spokesman said it was false and that Schmidt was an investor.
Delph claims to have been dismissed after having raised concerns for Mah internally at a management meeting, while the Mulholland trial said that he felt forced to resign because Mah “ordered him to break the law by hiding and / or denouncing important facts while engaging in the general solicitation of investors in unregistered security”.
Delph complaints complaints include reprisals of the reporters, unjustified termination, age discrimination and sexual harassment. Mulholland affirms constructive reprisals and reprisals of the Reports, among other affirmations. And the DGV complaints include the violation of the trustee obligation, the breach of the contract, the civilian theft and the sale of unregistered securities.
Additional Jack Newsham reports.
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