. Lido Vizzutti/Flathead Beacon/AP This kind of tragedy needs a Batman., Well then weve just agreed this kind of shit is going to be a core part of our mission, cuz I couldnt think of a more worthwhile thing to spend my money on, Goguen answered. And it is just one tentacle in a series of legal tangles involving Goguenfeaturing many overlapping charactersranging from an explosive sexual misconduct lawsuit to an extortion plot by an acquaintance. Soon, Marshall moved his family to Whitefish. Goguen insists he knew nothing about those plans. Their relationship had devolved after Nash filed for divorce from his wife, Stephanie, in 2008; Nash grew suspicious that Goguen was funding her legal bills. The scandal has engulfed the entire town of Whitefish, Montana. In August 2013, Marshall texted to confirm whether he should make an offer on an additional safe house., Yes, let's make an offer, Goguen replied. A normal guy would have gone to bed, but I decided to go out. She was barred from repeating any of the allegations against him. Tucker Carlson Was Fired After Calling a Fox News Executive the C-Word. In former police chief Bill Dials response to the Montana POST investigation, he noted that the department had executed a search warrant of the womans email account and determined that the letter to Baptistes attorney had not been forged.. On one particularly debauched night, Marshall claimed, hed given a local 17-year-old girl alcohol and cocaine and then paid her $1,200 for sex. The FBI discovered that Marshall had faked his CIA history, too, and in our conversations, Marshall couldnt provide the name of a single person he served overseas with during his time at the Agency other than Johnny Spann. Doe was not a college graduate when she and Goguen met; she was 19 and had recently graduated from high school. This was the start of Amyntor, which Goguen later described as like Blackwater though only contracts that were ethically unambiguous, noncontroversial, and clearly good (from the average person on the streets perspective) would be taken.. [9], In 2019, Goguen founded Two Bear Capital, a venture capital firm based in Whitefish, Montana. Also, former Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial sued Goguen in December 2019, alleging Goguen attempted to derail a criminal investigation and also tried to get Dial fired from his job. After Goguen wired her a first installment of $10 million, however, Baptiste demanded he accelerate the payment schedule, and he canceled the deal. The buzz over the all-too-familiar new platform is as much about getting out as in. Goguen allegedly had Nash followed by a private detective and paid for the wifes legal expenses, causing the divorce to be drawn out and having Nash incur more expenses, court papers say. A former Marine and alleged CIA operative, he once headed up the Amyntor Group and is now the lead plaintiff in the civil suit filed against Goguen in February and amended in September. A combination of skill, grit, and luck could propel them farther. Maguire defended the loan to The Daily Beast as an innocuous favor from Marshall, which he quickly paid back. At first, Goguen declined to speak to me on the record. I thought of a text message from Goguen I saw, which a lawyer involved in the Goguen-Baptiste legal dispute provided me. Goguens attorneys quickly sued the Post, the author, and Dial for publishing false and defamatory statements. In every interaction, Goguens immense wealth seemed to have a gravity all of its own, a by-product of a society in which the tiny few control an obscene amount of money and more and more people struggle to get by. He presently lives in Whitefish, Montana, a quiet resort town just north of the city of Kalispell. Whatever loose strands I might be able to pull regarding his behavior, Goguen told me, Marshall was the one I should be focused on: It is very clear to me and anyone who follows the evidence that everything leads back to Marshall. [5][6][7][8] The lawsuit was dismissed in March 2019 for "Baptistes failure to provide documents, undergo medical exams and appear at hearings". Whitefish, Montana, is known for fly fishing and hiking trails studded with yellow Aspen trees. Were pretty happy., Added Jamie, in a Facebook post: To the conspiracy of Marshall blowhardsdrop the soap & have fun in federal prison!. Photographic evidence: Marshall in Iraq in 2004. The portrait of Goguen that emerged from the whole mess was of a man who, though his life seemed to be dominated and nearly ruined by his affairs, wasnt the supervillain Marshall made him out to be. Most GOP presidential candidates consider a ban unpopular and unfeasible. Host Roy Wood Jr. and President Biden made a case for why this goofy event is important. According to a court filing later submitted by federal prosecutors, Goguen wired more than $2 million to Marshall for the paramilitary missions over multiple payments, including $750,000 in 2015 "to strike Syrian Terrorist Leaders," But these grandiose plans to save the world never came to fruition. Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyTo the uber-rich venture capitalist Michael Goguen, it was apparently an enticing idea: a supposed former CIA agent named Matthew Marshall wanted to conduct an "off the books" paramilitary operation in Mexico. Inside the club, Marshall entertained Goguen with more tales of his international exploits. He owns the popular local watering hole, Caseys; he funded an Internet Crimes Against Children task force; and he has poured millions of dollars into a search-and-rescue operator called Two Bear. Plus Marshall didnt speak a word of Pashto or Dari. In Montana, the two men were inseparable. Marshall previously had rapport with Erickson. Youre supposed to be an investor for a living, have these wonderful instincts and all that, and youve been suckered, Michael Goguen lamented. Marshall soon arrived at the cabin. Although Goguen didnt know it, that story had been debunked by the Indiana state police more than two decades ago, when he was an officer on the force. Scores of questions remain, and Goguens roster of enemies has only metastasized. Erickson openly shared with Marshall the fact that he was spending time with Goguen, including having dinner at his house, spending time on Whitefish Lake, going on a coyote hunt, court papers say. He ran a background check, and it showed that Marshall had struggled with money for years and had declared bankruptcy in 2003. When we turned to Marshalls allegations against him, Goguen began by emphatically denying that he had a spreadsheet with the names of 5,000 sex partners. Its the revenge of the nerds, she said. Whitefish venture capitalist and tech billionaire Michael Goguen donated a total of $350,000 to 35 families still struggling to find a place to live after being told they have to vacate this . Its possible that RFK Jr. or Marianne Williamson could do well in a primary that Biden cant enter without violating his own partys rules. Goguen typically spent the week in California and weekends in Montana, where he had a 75,000-square-foot mansion with six elevators, a UFC ring, an . But after Silicon Valley billionaire Michael Goguen took up residence in the Rocky Mountain town several years ago, he transformed it into his private fiefdom: a dark banana republic where he allegedly controls local law enforcement and a harem of young women. To emphasize the point, she fired a gun twice. forming Newco. I thought the guy was legit., In the fall of 2018, court records would show, Marshall started searching online for terms like Stolen Valor Act Punishment, Crime of Stolen Valor, and Stolen Valor Act 2017. During that time, he messaged Mary Beth Long asking if she could help dig up dirt on Goguen. Two Bear Capital invested $22 million to Inimmune, a biotech company, in July 2020; this investment was part of the largest Series A investment in Montana history. Recent. In May 2014, as part of a settlement, he had agreed to pay $40 million over two years to Amber Baptiste, a former dancer hed met at a Dallas strip club, to keep their relationship secret. Maguire had once been an important person at the Agency. Absolutely. His great wealth allowed him to make large donations that could change the course of a persons life, which was the biggest high you can get., Marshall had also mischaracterized the Boom Boom Room, he said. He was sure he had met Marshall in post-invasion Iraq, but he had about 700 people under his command, and it was difficult to tell CIA and private contractors apart. The woman did have sex with Goguen in 2012, she wrote, but she was 19 years old at the time and fully consented. She added that neither drugs nor alcohol influenced their encounter, and she was not paid to sleep with him, nor did she report any alleged wrongdoing to the police. Anti-abortion activists want to roll back reproductive rights nationwide. This 4 bed/2.5 bath 3033 sq. Goguen joked that he watched too many cartoons as a kid, which gave him a hero complex and a warped attitude toward women. [20], In November 2022, New York published a piece that examined Marshall's con and the claims against Goguen. Each time he wrote, he insisted on his innocence. Mary Beth Long, a veteran of the CIA and a former assistant secretary of defense, also became an advisor to Amyntor. But these world-saving ambitions never materialized. Whitefish City Manager Dana Smith told the Daily Inter Lake in an email that the city opened an investigation as required by POST. He was tortured, but after a week in captivity, he managed to escape, crossing into Iraq with help from a friendly Syrian truck driver, who hid him under a pile of chicken coops. The billionaire, in turn, starts to believe that enough money can make any problem disappear. The only victims here are Mike and his poor family. Their relationship, she said, was entirely consensual. He accepted a plea agreement in federal court in Montana for wire fraud, tax evasion and conning Goguen out of millions of dollars. But on Nov. 10, Marshall like Nash and Baptiste before him found himself suddenly in the hot seat. More People Would Believe Me If I Screamed. Abso-fucking-lutely. It wasnt long, though, before Goguens sexual appetites threatened to wreck him and Amyntor. With professionals in Whitefish, MT, the San . In May 2018, Marshall wrote to Goguen complaining that things have gotten to a point that you dont communicate with me at all and I cant keep begging you for funding every two weeks. In June, Goguen replied, I know Ive been a black hole when its come to communication over the past month, and I apologize for that. But he also made clear that he no longer believed Marshall when he said new contracts for Amyntor were just about to be signed. Now, Goguen is wrapped up in a mystery that just keeps getting messier, as person after person has apparently tried to take him down only to end up taken down themselves. Goguen made clear that he no longer believed Marshall. He started working as a contractor in Iraq with the infamous private military outfit Blackwater in 2004, and from the outset he allegedly claimed to have extensive recon experience with the Marinesa credential that made him especially attractive. He was really pulling on the hero-complex strings., In 2013, the pair met in person at a conference in Las Vegas, which culminated with a visit to the Spearmint Rhino strip club. Born in 1964, Goguen was raised in Bedford, Massachusetts, outside Boston, the fifth of six children. When he returned to Indiana after boot camp, he served in the reserves and provided infantry training to new recruits on weekends, but after a short time, he was given an other-than-honorable discharge because he had missed too many shifts. 32,000-square-foot getaway in Whitefish, Mont., complete with a racquetball court, underground shooting range . Seeing these allegations against him makes me happy that karma is coming back around because he took away an important part of my identity search as a teenager.. He also demanded that she refer to him as king and emperor, according to the filings. Now, he said, he was living in Mexico fighting the cartels, which had put a $20 million bounty on his head. a Montana newspaper, in 2012, after Goguen donated more than $10 million to a state land trust and spent about the same amount to create a high-end helicopter . Listen to the actual voices of all the players in the podcast version of this article. It is not known if the agreement included a financial settlement. If you want to crucify me for that, go for it, he said. Talking to McKinley convinced Goguen to look again at his former employee. We just made this shit up as we went along, said McElhattan, who believed Marshall was using Goguen as his personal ATM machine., According to McElhattan, Maguire operated what he described as a secure room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., and following Donald Trumps election he pitched the presidents inner circle on a plan to help the administration counter deep state investigations by the FBI. Goguen falsely told the FBI that Marshall did not have the requisite experience, had stolen and then laundered funds from Goguen and testified in other ways meant to obstruct law enforcements discovery of Goguens sexual misconduct and the existence of the Goguen Sexual Scheme, court papers allege. He is also known for his extensive philanthropic work in Montana and other regions. He has no plans to return to Sequoia or Silicon Valley. [19] Marshall is currently serving jail time in federal prison for money laundering, income tax evasion, and defrauding Goguen in their joint venture. With open living concept all throughout the main floor, and plenty of patio and deck space, this home is the perfect place to charm all of your guests. This is the kind of situation that I would love Amyntor to be able to fix in the future, Goguen wrote. A similar account of Maguires antics at the hotel was previously reported by The Intercept. I mean, gosh, it even sounds yucky, Goguen said. Two Bear Capital invested $22 million to Inimmune, a biotech company, in July 2020; this investment was part of the largest Series A investment in Montana history. The suit outlined what the plaintiffs labeled the Goguen Sexual Enterprise, consisting of a harem of women and safe houses used for extra-marital affairs. He was at The Farm for a while. Marshalls account of his first night out with Goguen at Spearmint Rhino when hed spent a tiny portion of the $5,000 while virtuously shooing off strippers also didnt go down as hed related it. Hes like, I do this all the time, and Ive never had anybody give me back money. After that night, the pair forged a bond and a business partnership. "I've used nuWest for several projects, including my home, and am always impressed by the final product," says . Absolutely. In May 2014, he wrote to Marshall, This is that nutty girl I just paid a zillion dollars to go away, & who I fucked one last goodbye time. He included a picture of Baptiste in a bikini. Marshall flew back to Mexico the following day. THE ULTIMATE MISSION OF TWO BEAR AIR RESCUE IS SAVING LIVES. Met with my blonde baby mama early in the evening then she had to go home to her husband. The pair met again in Whitefish in February 2013, where they finalized plans for Amyntor. But the company had not landed significant deals, even though Marshall had managed to recruit big names, like John Maguire, a CIA alum with decades of experience at the agency. At the time, a Sequoia spokesman told TechCrunch that while the firm understood these allegations of serious improprieties to be unproven and unrelated to Sequoia its management committee had nevertheless decided that Mikes departure was the appropriate course of action.. Maguire joined the company in early 2015. She wasnt sure if Marshall was acting on Goguens behalf, but she believed the properties housed corporate employees. Frequently, Gougen would send Marshall news of his own. The downside now is that theres no funding to support the operations because no government has taken a hard line stance on it. He reputedly sent a long email to Goguen professing his loyaltya copy of which The Daily Beast obtainedwhich featured a meandering war story supposedly from his time overseas. If he could have her deported, then his case with Baptiste would go away, court papers said. Prosecutors further alleged in court that he may have fabricated some documents related to the case. Two shitbags who got in a cock fight and one was better funded than the other, was his verdict on the legal battle between his former friend and Goguen. It started with his former acquaintance Bryan Nash. He had gotten a share of the Google deal and, as Bloomberg reported, frequently appeared on the Forbes Midas List for his ability to find and fund winning technologies.. When he was supposed to be in Syria killing terrorists, hed gone to Miami with his girlfriend and bought jewelry and other gifts for himself and friends. The scandal has engulfed the entire town of Whitefish, a bucolic hideaway for the super-rich on the fringe of Glacier National Park. The investigation was handed to Detective Shane Erickson, who did not follow through, court papers say. [10], Goguen has been married four times;[11] his wife is Jamie Stephenson Goguen. In 1991, while still at DEC, he got a masters degree in electrical engineering. Certain facts about the situation and the way it was handled by law enforcement remain in dispute. When the pair drove up to the club in Goguens car, a manager was waiting out front and escorted them to a table near the stage. I remember writing down every deposit and withdrawal in a little bank book, he said. Venture capitalist Michael Goguen has been besieged by legal battles and a growing roster of enemies. Goguen resides on 3,200 acres outside of Whitefish . The Jane Doe case, however, provided some of the first hints I got that many of Marshalls accusations were baseless. michael goguen montanaproperty management without a license in texas aot 4, 2022 12:34 . Kamala Harris May Be a Huge Republican Target in 2024. He had sex with her and then paid her $1,200, court papers say. By that point, he had stopped replying to Marshalls emails. The plaintiffs included some familiar characters: John Maguire (the CIA and Amyntor alum) and Matthew Marshall, accompanied by Anthony Aguilar (Marshalls cousin, who worked at Amyntor) and Keegan Bonnet (with whom Marshall has two children). Theyd met and had consensual sex. This, after allegations that he had swindled Michael Goguen, a venture capitalist, out of millions of dollars. Everybody knows John, a former long-time CIA contractor said, referring to the agencys training center. He had vowed to fight it out in court because he was wholly innocent of the charges, but days before the trial began, he cut a plea deal with prosecutors. The underground enclave is allegedly used to maintain women for the purpose of committing illicit sexual activity.. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us. A word about Whitefish: It is exactly the kind of place a billionaire would go to hide out. New York May Become the First State to Ban Gas in New Buildings. It didnt take him long to conclude that Marshall was defrauding him. That was it., He bumped into the dancer at Spearmint Rhino about two years later. They exchanged numbers and talked about meeting for lunch the next day, but he blew her off. Flash forward to 2014 and the woman began leaving him hundreds of frightening messages. (In truth, a subsequent court order from the judge overseeing Marshalls criminal trial stated that neither Long nor Maguire had direct knowledge of Marshalls alleged work for the agency. Goguen would become one of the organizations biggest donors, but at that first meeting he joked to McKinley and a colleague that he was wary of investing with ex-military guys after his failure with Amyntor. The plea, on its face, suggested that Amyntor was merely a sham. McKinley told Goguen about the evidence uncovered by Evan Hafer, the founder of Black Rifle Coffee Company and a former CIA officer and Green Beret.