A tech CEO who allegedly pressured a former assistant to develop into his “intercourse slave” claims the accusations surfaced solely after a robust Hollywood lawyer tried to shake him down for $10 million for a “fast payday,” The Submit has realized.
Christian Lanng — who left the helm of San Francisco-based tech unicorn Tradeshift in October over allegations of “critical assault and harassment” — claims in an explosive countersuit {that a} month earlier he was getting threatening textual content messages from Bryan Freedman, a Los Angeles legal professional whose superstar purchasers embody ex-CNN host Don Lemon and reality-TV star Bethenny Frankel.
“I’ve been requested by a significant media outlet for those who would seem to elucidate your aspect of the story this week together with the claims being filed,” Freedman informed Lanng in a Sept. 4 textual content message, in keeping with the countersuit filed in US district court docket in California.
The media outlet was TMZ, the place Freedman had appeared the earlier month, holding up a replica of an alleged “slave contract” with the names blacked out, in keeping with the Tuesday swimsuit. TMZ is owned by Fox Corp., which shares a typical proprietor with the New York Submit.
Whereas Freedman purportedly appeared on TMZ for a separate case about his actuality TV-star clientele, he held up a replica of the redacted “slave contract” whereas on digital camera — “a transparent menace to counterclaimant,” per Lanng’s camp, who’ve maintained that Lanng and his accuser, identified in court docket papers as Jane Doe, have been in a consensual relationship.
The day after the preliminary Sept. 4 textual content, Freedman messaged Lanng once more, writing, “Christian, I don’t management media as you realize however as soon as filed instances tackle lives of their very own,” in keeping with court docket papers. “Clearly, fee avoids the submitting. Is that occuring as we speak? Bruce supplied 10m filed by 8/15.
“Let me know if you wish to keep away from this being far more tough as our papers are able to go,” Freedman added, in keeping with the screenshots.
In response to the allegations, a spokesperson for Freedman supplied a quick, written assertion from the facility lawyer.
“It’s not a shock that the enforcer of a slave contract would attempt to play the sufferer,” Freedman mentioned. “It’s nothing however additional abuse and a determined try to deflect from his personal unlawful conduct.”
The alleged shakedown happened only one month after banking big HSBC announced that it made a $35 million funding into Tradeshift as a part of $70 million in funding to kind a three way partnership.
Lanng’s countersuit in opposition to the LA lawyer comes after he had already agreed to pay Doe $10 million “regardless of his innocence” as a part of a Might 2022 settlement settlement that was reached “for the sake of making an attempt to salvage the potential sale of Tradeshift,” in keeping with the court docket paperwork.
Tradeshift informed The Submit on Monday that over a yr later, “on Sept. 1, 2023, Mr. Lanng was dismissed for gross misconduct on a number of grounds. He has additionally resigned from the Tradeshift Board.”
Lanng claims in his countersuit the shakedown started after he missed a deadline for an installment on the $10 million, out-of-court settlement with Doe.
In response, he alleges that Freedman’s Los Angeles-based legislation agency Freedman Taitelman + Cooley LLP “employed third events to develop pretend web sites and Twitter accounts to manufacture accounts of misconduct by Lanng in early 2023.”
A spokesperson for Lanng claimed that a type of pretend accounts operated on X with the deal with @_ChristianLanng, tweeting cryptic posts similar to, “To Christian and the whole Tradeshift board: I’m not going wherever. None of us are. That is only the start.”
The concept was “embarrassing and intimidating Lanng in order that he would conform to pay much more cash than the sum already paid,” per the countersuit.
Doe’s stunning lawsuit filed in December claimed the wicked “slave contract” required her to “all the time be sexually accessible for her grasp when he wants intercourse and to by no means refuse him intercourse even when not sporting the [day] collar,” in keeping with an alleged copy of the contract filed along with her swimsuit.
“At any time when she sees her grasp in personal for the primary time, she is to kneel and ask if there may be something she will do for him,” the purported contract added of Doe, who was fired from Tradeshift in 2020 “throughout certainly one of a number of rounds of layoffs Tradeshift has sadly needed to bear,” Lanng mentioned late final yr.
Doe, who labored as Lanng’s assistant at one level, was additionally supposed to maintain a “diary” of his “subjugation and enslavement of her,” and had agreed to be crushed “with a cane if she didn’t write submissive entries,” in keeping with her lawsuit.
In his countersuit, nevertheless, Lanng included an alleged entry wherein Doe gushed about her relationship with Lanng.
“I’m so obsessed and IN LOVE and in AWE and so effervescent wanting needing aching for CHRISTIAN! … I’m a lot extra assured I’m additionally very a lot his intercourse slave lol.”
Attorneys for Lanng argued that “It’s unreasonable to attract the conclusion that, ‘I’m very a lot his intercourse slave lol’ was written on the behest of her ‘grasp,’” including that Doe’s allegations don’t have “any advantage in any respect.”
In his countersuit, Lanng claims that the “slave contract” was “merely a sexual prop downloaded from the web” after Lanng and Doe’s relationship got here to incorporate “parts of BDSM,” and was “in no way supposed to be enforcable,” particularly within the office.
Lanng added in an announcement to The Submit that he filed a counterclaim in California court docket on Tuesday in opposition to Freedman, Cooley and Doe “for extortion, defamation, breach of contract, and intentional infliction of emotional misery.”
He requested “a minimum of $40 million” in damages.
“As evidenced by the textual content messages within the submitting, Mr. Freedman approached me whereas I used to be briefly unrepresented by an legal professional. His actions included ‘leveling threats,’ interfering with my ‘potential to acquire competent counsel by inserting an arbitrary deadline on the extortionate demand,’ all whereas he ‘indicated that he was in communication with a significant media outlet,’” Lanng added.
He additionally famous that Doe “was convicted of a criminal offense of ethical turpitude.”
Per California data, Doe was discovered responsible of a petty theft misdemeanor in 2005 — years earlier than allegedly changing into romantically concerned with Lanng in 2014. She was sentenced to 3 years of probation, which she probably violated, public data present.
Further case information associated to Doe’s misdemeanor have since been destroyed, Lanng’s rep informed The Submit.
In one other instance of how Freedman allegedly botched Doe’s submitting, Lanng famous in an announcement to The Submit that Freedman “did not redact” the identify of certainly one of Lanng’s former girlfriends who was included in Doe’s lawsuit.
In an affidavit obtained by The Submit, Lanng’s ex-girlfriend said that her “identify was revealed in a grievance filed Dec. 7, 2023 with out my consent or prior data, by an unredacted termination letter that named me as an aggrieved social gathering which I’m not.”
The 2 have been in a relationship by the spring and summer season of 2023, in keeping with the affidavit.
Freedman has confronted related authorized pushback over alleged hardball techniques, together with when MediaLink founder and chief Michael Kassan sued the Hollywood heavyweight lawyer for defamation in connection to his lawsuit in opposition to UTA, which Freedman was representing when he known as Kassan a “pathological liar” in an interview with Deadline.
