http://articles.latimes.com/2002/may/18/local/me-den18Many workers at the company said they had suspicions about then-Chairman Collins-Rector and discussed them internally before the New Jersey lawsuit. "There was something not right," a former executive said Friday. "There were too many little boys. People were willing to look the other way."
Matt Welch, a Los Angeles writer who briefly consulted for the company, said its collapse "would have been one of the textbook classic dot-com flameouts even without this. It was a bad idea, at a bad time, done by bad people.... I wouldn't say there was an atmosphere of criminal behavior, you just felt the decadence."
Collins-Rector, who is in his early 40s, shared a palatial Encino estate with longtime partner Chad Shackley, 24, and with Brock Pierce, a child Disney movie star who moved in when he was 17 and was paid a $250,000 salary by the company. Shackley and Pierce were executive vice presidents of the company.
It spent freely on its productions and facilities and paid salaries that exceeded $1 million, unusually high figures for a start-up. In June 1999, the company was burning up $3 million a month when it had no revenue.
Among those who have filed lawsuits are four former employees, including one hired and allegedly abused before the age of 16 and another hired at 15 and abused at 16.
A suit by one of the teenagers was settled, but its terms were not disclosed. A suit filed by three of the teenagers resulted in a default judgment of $4.5 million.
The suits accused Collins-Rector, Shackley and Pierce of rape, assault and death threats. Shackley and Pierce have not been charged criminally.
A 17-year-old boy helping to recruit even younger boys to have sex with a 40 something man doesn't sound much like a lover of women to me, yet his current partner states otherwise with:
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- I can also guarantee you without a doubt is Brock is a lover of women (so much that I fear that it keeps getting him into trouble).
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One of the few pics of Brock Pierce seen with a women was with Autumn Radtke (also seen with Sir Richard Branson):
http://dailyentertainmentnews.com/wpgo/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/autumn-radtke-boyfriend_thumb.jpg
http://dailyentertainmentnews.com/tv/autumn-radtke-american-bitcoin-firm-ceo/Could it be her passing is connected to the crisis-ridden bitcoin currency following the collapse of the Japanese-based Mt Gox exchange last week?
http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/ceo%E2%80%99s-death-%E2%80%98not-linked-bitcoin-plunge%E2%80%99Ms Autumn Radtke shared her work troubles during lunch with a business partner on Feb 25.
Early the next day, the 28-year-old chief executive of Singapore virtual currency exchange First Meta was found dead on the roof of a ground-floor rubbish collection point at a Cantonment Close Housing Board block.
"She was clearly stressed," said Mr Steve Beauregard, who had lunch with her. "She talked about... challenges with the business and I was trying to help her address some of her issues."
He had rented a room in her office-home at nearby Everton Road.
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Ms Radtke, an American, had told The Straits Times in January that First Meta was not a bitcoin exchange, although it accepted bitcoins as payment for virtual currencies like those used in some games.
Mr Beauregard founded Singapore bitcoin payment platform GoCoin, which helps First Meta.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brockpierceBrock Pierce is a 15x entrepreneur best known for pioneering the market for digital currency. He has raised more than $200 million on behalf of his companies and led more than 30 acquisitions. He is currently a Managing Director of the Clearstone Global Gaming Fund and sits on the boards of IMI Exchange, Xfire, Playsino, ExpressCoin (easy way to buy Bitcoin), GoCoin (Bitcoin payments), FGL, Spicy Horse Games, KnCMiner.cn (Bitcoin mining), Robocoin China (Bitcoin ATMs) and the Mastercoin Foundation (Bitcoin meta application layer).
I wonder how many KnC Miner bitcoins from their 7,000+ mega-phram passed through First Meta.
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