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Gearbox CEO, Randy Pitchford, is no stranger to controversy. In the most recent turn of events, Pitchford's former lawyer has launched a lawsuit, which claims details on a secret $12 million bonus that Pitchford received, unpaid loans and the loss of a USB stick containing confidential documents alongside porn.
Wade Callender acted as legal counsel at Gearbox from 2010 until 2018 and was friends with Randy Pitchford for many years beforehand. In the lawsuit filed against Pitchford, Callender claims that the Gearbox CEO breached fiduciary duties by exploiting employees and company-owned property to shovel money into his own private endeavours. Examples of alleged exploitation include a $12 million bonus that could have gone to Gearbox employees, but was instead funnelled into one of Pitchford's privately owned companies.
Another part of the lawsuit explains that at one point, Pitchford took a USB drive with sensitive company documents to a restaurant in Texas and left it there. The person who found it had access to sensitive material. Randy also allegedly had porn saved to this USB stick, the lawsuit lists this as “underage porn”. Pitchford has admitted to porn being saved to the lost USB drive but says that it was an 18 year-old camgirl rather than anything illegal. Another accusation found in the lawsuit claims that Pitchford has hosted private parties in which adult men would expose themselves to minors.
The attacks made by my former friend and colleague have no basis in reality or law. He is simply trying to shake me down for money. We will win, but because lawsuits are pending I can’t comment as much as I’d like. I am shocked by his lies. Thanks for your love and support.
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) January 11, 2019
As a father, I find crimes against children to be especially repugnant. It is very painful that a former friend and colleague would lie to try to associate me with such vile behavior in his own greedy pursuit of money.
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) January 11, 2019
These are some heavy accusations, so as you would expect, Pitchford has filed a counter-suit and has also took to Twitter to make a couple of statements: “The attacks made by my former friend and colleague have no basis in reality or law. He is simply trying to shake me down for money. We will win, but because lawsuits are pending I can't comment as much as I'd like. I am shocked by his lies.”
“As a father, I find crimes against children to be especially repugnant. It is very painful that a former friend and colleague would lie to try to associate me with such vile behavior in his own greedy pursuit of money”.
As reported by Kotaku, Gearbox Software will be filing its own complaint with the State Bar of Texas against Wade Callender. If a disciplinary committee finds that Callender knowingly filed untrue accusations as part of a lawsuit, then he could lose is license to practise law in the state.
KitGuru Says: There are a lot of damning accusations in the lawsuit against Randy Pitchford, but of course, there is no proof at this point in time. Randy will be defending himself with his own legal proceedings, so we will have to wait and see how this all shakes out.
