Rape charge dropped against former Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price
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Riverside County prosecutors have dropped a rape charge against Dan Price, the former chief executive of Gravity Payments, who was accused of sexually assaulting a girlfriend at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs in 2021.
The charge against the 41-year-old founder of the Seattle-based tech company was dismissed on Tuesday due to a lack of prosecutable evidence, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.
Price gained renown in 2015 when he took an almost 93% pay cut to raise his employees’ starting salary to $70,000. But his reputation as a darling of the progressive movement was sullied in 2022 when the New York Times published an expose detailing an alleged history of abusing women — accusations he has denied.
The article, based on interviews with more than a dozen women, painted the portrait of a predatory man who used his fame to enable a pattern of abuse in his personal life, including a domestic violence accusation by his ex-wife and an alleged assault of a woman in Seattle.
It also shared the story of his former girlfriend Kacie Margis, who accused him of raping her in Palm Springs in April 2021 after she had told him she didn’t want to have sex and had taken a cannabis edible to counter insomnia. The following morning, she fled her hotel room and reported the alleged rape to police.
Investigators with the Palm Springs Police Department submitted the rape case for review to the Riverside County district attorney’s office, police said.
Price stepped down from his executive role at credit card payment-processing company Gravity Payments in August 2022, saying in a statement on X that he needed “to focus full time on fighting false accusations” made against him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he vowed.
Last May, he announced that he had returned to Gravity Payments full time as an adviser to the CEO.
In September, a Riverside County grand jury indicted him on one count of rape of an unconscious victim, according to court documents. He voluntarily appeared in court and posted $55,000 in bail.
Price, ultimately, never entered a plea in the Palm Springs case as his arraignment was postponed multiple times.
The Riverside County district attorney’s office said in a statement shared with The Times that it “thoroughly reviewed all available evidence and, after careful consideration, has determined that we are unable to pursue charges against Mr. Price beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In a statement provided to The Times by his attorney Vicki Podberesky, Price said that he had never physically or sexually abused anyone.
“Now that this chapter is behind me, I am re-doubling my efforts to serve Gravity Payments, the other companies I’m involved with, and my community,” said Price. “I’d like to thank my family and friends for their support, as well as the thousands of people who have reached out online to send me encouraging messages.”
Podberesky is a noted criminal attorney who represented the Church of Scientology in a rape case involving “That ’70s show” actor Danny Masterson and represented former USC Dean Marilyn Flynn during a federal corruption investigation.
Podberesky said in a statement that “there was not a shred of credible evidence that Dan did anything wrong.”
“Throughout this process, we repeatedly provided exculpatory materials to the district attorney’s office, including Dan providing a voluntary DNA sample,” she stated. “We appreciate that the district attorney thoroughly reviewed the evidence of Dan’s innocence and did the right thing by dismissing this case.”
Price also has faced misdemeanor assault charges in the city of Seattle, after a woman he went to dinner with accused him of forcing unwanted kisses and grabbing her by the neck. Those charges were dropped against him in 2023, due to “proof” problems, according to the Seattle Times.
In a recent court statement, Margis said that a grand jury believed her rape allegation after hearing testimony from hotel staff, law enforcement, another witness and herself, the news outlet reported.
“But now I sit here watching that same man walk free again,” she wrote. “I hope this court recognizes the strength it takes to survive something like this — to speak out, to relive it over and over and still stand tall.”
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