The man hired by Amber Heard to spin her side of the ongoing legal battle involving Johnny Depp reportedly has two DUI arrests, various sexual harassment claims against him, and other sexual misconduct allegations swirling around. So just hiring him may not turn out to be the best look…
All this comes as part of the new focus on PR guru David Shane, a 49-year-old public relations professional hired recently by Heard who one source called “the walking #MeToo case of the PR world” in a shocking new conversation with DailyMail.com.
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According to several of his former colleagues, who spoke to the outlet anonymously about the allegedly “litigious” PR pro, he was apparently investigated by Human Resources departments at both Hewlett-Packard and Juniper, where he served as VP of communications for each firm consecutively from the late 2000s into the early 2010s.
Reportedly called “Hurricane Shane” by some associates at those firms, the PR vet allegedly left both companies following claims of sexual harassment. However, Shane’s lawyer told the outlet that the allegations were “false” and a “distraction” from the Depp-Heard trial.
In addition to the reported sexual harassment allegations, the outlet further determined through court documents that Shane had two DUI charges filed against him — one in 2010, and another one in 2012.
Also, a former model named Hollie Doker spoke to the news org about her alleged interaction with Shane, in which she claims he tried to force her to give him oral sex after two dates in late 2018. Doker, who is 32 years old now, alleges that Shane took her on two dates — one to Mr Chow and another one to Nobu Sushi, in El Lay — after meeting on the exclusive dating app Raya at some point that year.
After the second date, she claims, he took her back to his WeHo condominium. Doker told the outlet about the allegations once there, saying (below):
“He started getting really aggressive, like ‘come to my bedroom, let’s have sex.’ I’m like, ‘no.’ I even lied to him and told him I was on my period because I just felt so uncomfortable. He said ‘I took you on these amazing dates to these really great restaurants,’ insinuating that I owed it to him.”
Gross. Doker’s allegations continued, with her adding:
“At that point he started getting super aggressive and he pushed my head down, towards that [his crotch]. I told him no and I got up. He got angry and was like ‘I’ll call you a f**king Uber.’”
Whoa…
Doker claims that she complained to Raya after the incident — and the company supposedly deleted Shane’s account.
However, Shane’s lawyer Rebecca Kaufman “adamantly denies” the allegations against the PR pro, arguing that the account given to the news outlet now is markedly different from one Doker shared in a private Facebook group of Los Angeles-area women back at the end of 2018.
Kaufman stated:
“[Shane] adamantly denies Hollie Doker’s allegation, which dramatically conflicts with Ms. Doker’s original account that she posted over three years ago.”
It apparently wasn’t just Doker, though.
Former colleagues from Shane’s time at the company Juniper in northern California told the news outlet that there was a “slew of complaints” against him while working there. In one instance, one of the sources alleges, Shane supposedly used company funds to pay women to attend a 2011 conference in Hong Kong to “create a club feel” and “improve the gender balance” of the event.
The insider claimed:
“He thought it was too heavily male, and so added some females into the mix. It was wildly inappropriate.”
Another anonymous source from Juniper alleged further harassment, with the insider claiming Shane was “pushing himself” on younger women with whom he worked:
“[It was] inappropriate behavior with young members of the comms function. Comms teams are generally younger women.”
And the bad behavior allegedly started even earlier, at Hewlett-Packard, too.
The outlet reports that “two sources who worked with [Shane]” claim he abruptly left working at the tech giant in 2010 after an HR investigation was supposedly initiated. One insider alleged:
“Hewlett-Packard were doing an investigation on him. There were certainly a lot of issues. There was great discomfort among the women around him. I don’t think he was a good guy to be around if you were a woman.”
Yikes.
Regarding the sexual misconduct allegations, as well as the DUI reporting and claims of inappropriate behavior at prior workplaces, Kaufman attempted to turn the story back to the Depp-Heard case.
She told the news org that all the reporting notes against Shane were “false accusations,” and added:
“It’s easy to get distracted by anonymous, false accusations, but the focus should be on the merits of the defamation case pending in Fairfax County, Virginia and the relevant facts presented at trial.”
You can read the full report on Shane HERE.
Reactions, Perezcious readers?
[Image via Law & Crime/YouTube]