Joe Lonsdale is a co-founder of Palintir, with Peter Thiel. He also founded an accounting software company and is one of the tech billionaires who finance the right. As a Libertarian, he most strongly supports Rand Paul. He was also a mentor for engineering students at Stanford, his alma mater. A former mentee, Ellie Clougherty sued him alleging sexual abuse and rape.
Stanford determined that he abused the mentor-mentee relationship that prohibits consensual relationships. They originally sustained her allegations of rape against him and banned him from campus, but he appealed.
Lonsdale provided emails where she wrote he was sexy and that she liked sex with him the night before. This seems to be the argument that once you consent, you always consent, an argument that convinced Emily Bazelon in her New York Times article. It also convinced Stanford who reversed their finding. Lonsdale sued Clougherty for defamation. The two reached an out-of-court settlement that is undisclosed.
Stanford did not reverse their finding of an improper relationship with a mentee.
- New York Times: The Stanford Undergraduate and the Mentor
- New York Times: The Lessons of Stanford’s Sex-Assault-Case Reversal
- New York Intelligencer: The Sickening Rape Allegations Against a Silicon Valley Mogul
Oakland, California · Tuesday, February 10, 2015