Details Emerge in Joe Lonsdale Sexual Assault Lawsuit

 

Joe Lonsdale 

The suit goes on the detail what—if true—would be troubling descriptions of Lonsdale’s behavior. It claims that “during intercourse, he would regularly shake Ms. Clougherty violently and would not stop, despite her protests, until she promised she would always ‘listen to her master.’ In addition to shaking her violently during sexual assaults, he also began strangling her, slapping her, scratching her, yanking her by the hair so hard that he would lift her torso off the bed, and slamming her body against the walls and bed boards. He would growl and yell derogatory comments at her.”

The suit alleges two counts of sexual battery, one count of domestic violence, one count of gender violence, one count of sexual harassment, one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress, one count of negligent infliction of emotional distress, and one count of negligent retention and supervision, each of which carries $75,000 in damages.

For his part, Joe Lonsdale has mounted a vigorous defense of himself, releasing a detailed open letter that he hopes will refute the charges. He describes Clougherty as engaging in “a malicious campaign of lies” and says that “these attacks were and are 100 percent fiction—provably false.” He claims that their relationship was based on mutual consent and that “there are hundreds of emails from her telling me how much she loved me, how happy she was, and how excited she was about our future.”

Lonsdale implies that the charges stem in part from Cloughtery’s unease with her Catholic beliefs and an uneasy relationship to Clougherty’s mother, saying that “she and her mother discussed the most intimate details of our relationship […] including one time thanking me for the positive impact our sexual relationship had on her daughter” and that Cloughtery’s mother attempted to use Lonsdale for financial gain. He describes the Stanford investigation as a “Kafka-esque nightmare.”

In a statement given to Techcrunch, Cloughtery’s legal counsel replied to Lonsdale, saying, “Our client is no longer intimidated by Mr. Joe Lonsdale and his threats, nor is she intimidated by his crafted PR statement.”