Former CEO Dan Price charged with raping woman at Palm Springs hotel

On By Littum

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A former tech CEO has been indicted on an allegation that he raped a woman at a Palm Springs hotel in 2021.

Dan Price, founder and former CEO of Seattle-based Gravity Payments, was indicted by a Riverside County grand jury in September on two counts of rape, one of which has since been dismissed, court records show. He appeared in court last week and posted $55,000 bail. The trial is scheduled for January 10.

“As I said when these false allegations were reported in the media over two years ago, I have never physically or sexually abused anyone,” Price said in a statement. “I will fight this charge and prove my innocence in court.”

Officers from the Palm Springs Police Department went to the Ace Hotel on April 16, 2021, following a report of a rape, a department spokesman previously said. The accuser, model and artist Kacie Margis, later went public as part of a 2022 New York Times investigation by Price. (The Desert Sun does not identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they decide to make their identities public).

According to a report in the New York Times, Margis said she took an edible for insomnia before Price tried to initiate sex. She declined and said she was going to bed. The New York Times reported that when she fell asleep, she said she felt him enter her. She pretended to be asleep, worried that he would kill her if she tried to stop.

She said she waited a few minutes after he finished before retreating to the bathroom and confronting him, according to the New York Times. The news outlet reported that she “fled home” as the effects of the cannabis wore off before contacting the police.

Palm Springs police said they submitted their investigation to the Riverside County district attorney in 2022 and recommended that Price be charged with rape of a sedated victim. Prosecutors did not say why they waited two years to make a decision.

The Sept. 13 indictment charged Price with two felonies, rape of an intoxicated person and rape of an unconscious victim. The earlier charge has since been dismissed for reasons that are not clear from court records. The latter is still pending.

The DA’s office declined to comment on the case.

Price’s attorney, Vicki Podberesky, said in a statement that there was “no credible evidence” to support the charge.

“While we applaud the district attorney’s decision to dismiss the intoxication assault charge, as additional facts emerge, it will be clear that Mr. Price is innocent of the remaining charge,” she said. “We intend to vigorously defend ourselves against this charge, and we are confident that Mr. Price will ultimately be acquitted of all wrongdoing.”

Price rose to prominence for paying his employees a minimum wage of $70,000 a year, cutting his own to do so. His posts on social media often went viral for his stances against corporate greed.

Still, he walked away from Gravity Payments in 2022 after receiving questions from The New York Times as part of the investigation. He said at the time that he had become a distraction and needed to focus on fighting the false allegations against him.

Sam Morgen covers the city of Palm Springs for The Desert Sun. Contact him at [email protected].