The former chief executive of Gravity Payments rose to prominence with the introduction of his company’s $70,000 minimum salary and a splashy social media presence.
Dan Price, a Seattle tech executive who rose to fame for publicly raising the salaries of his employees and as a progressive social media influencer, was charged with rape on Thursday in Riverside County, Calif., according to court records.
Mr. Price, 40, was indicted last month by a grand jury on a charge of rape of an unconscious victim, according to Riverside Superior Court records unsealed on Thursday. Mr. Price, who voluntarily appeared in court and posted $55,000 in bail on Thursday, is scheduled to be arraigned in January, according to the documents.
The indictment stems from an incident in 2021, when a girlfriend said Mr. Price raped her at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs after she had said she did not want to have sex, took a cannabis edible and went to sleep. The woman, Kacie Margis, reported the incident to the police the next day. She went public with her story in 2022 as part of a New York Times investigation that found that Mr. Price had repeatedly used his fame to enable a pattern of abuse in his personal life and hostile behavior at his company.
Mr. Price denied the claims, but stepped down as chief executive of his company, Gravity Payments, to “focus full time on fighting false allegations made about me.”
“As I said when these false allegations were reported over two years ago, I have never physically or sexually abused anyone,” Mr. Price said in a statement provided by his lawyer, Vicki Podberesky. He said he would fight the charges.