The news has prompted two Santa Clara County officials — state Sen. Dave
Cortese and Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee member Michele
Dauber — to publicly call for Kremen's resignation from the water district
board, a position he has held since 2014.
In an email to SFGATE, Kremen said he will not resign, writing, "Having
this made-up 'scandal' (4 breastfeeding picture that allegedly made an
adult 'vomit') is defocusing to run a campaign against a 27 incumbent in a
county of 1.9 million people. It has nothing to do with providing safe,
clean water during one of the worst droughts in history."
Kremen said that the staffer, who resigned July 7, 2021, is primarily
retaliating over an argument with Kremen over Israel and Palestine.
Specifically, Kremen told SFGATE he believed that a resolution passed by the Santa Clara
County Democratic Party condemning Israel's bombing of the Gaza
strip was "divisive at best and antisemitic at worst." The staffer
disagreed with Kremen's characterization and subsequently resigned, Kremen
said.
When SFGATE asked Kremen why he suspended his campaign if he believes the
nude photo scandal is "made-up," he replied, "Because the headline and a
campaign piece 'nude picture scandal' gets more folks worked up than
'private breastfeeding pictures illegally shared.' Or 'unheard of event -
folks fight over the Middle East.'"
Because the photos were shown to the Spotlight, Kremen said he is looking
at possible legal action against the staffer.
"To secretly keep copies of all my photos, shopping them to the media for
at least 6 months before someone bit and then sharing them with others is
a betrayal of trust, very creepy as well as revenge porn," he wrote in an
email to SFGATE.
The staffer told the Spotlight that prior to the Israel-Palestine
argument or sharing of the nude photos, Kremen had a pattern of behavior
they objected to. Kremen allegedly touched the staffer's shoulders and
legs at parties and showed pictures of himself with pornographic
actors. Kremen denied the staffer's allegations of inappropriate
behavior during parties and told SFGATE he plans to return all of the
money he raised for his campaign.
In his run for county assessor, Kremen was challenging Larry Stone, an
incumbent of 27 years, whom Kremen accused of having a cavalier attitude
towards the COVID-19 pandemic. Stone previously got into a high-profile feud with
staffers over return-to-office policies.
Kremen founded Match.com, which was originally based in San Francisco, in
1993. He then left the company in 1996, and became the first registrant of the
internet domain address Sex.com. He founded solar financing startup Clean
Power Finance in 2006 before first getting involved in local politics in
2010, when he was elected to the board of the Purissima Water District in
Los Altos Hills.
Consider this tale of love and irony: Gary Kremen,40, is a
multi-millionaire. He lives in a 9,000-square-foot house in Rancho Santa
Fe, the wealthiest community in the U.S. He's Jewish, has never been
married and has no children. He started the website Match.com, the largest
online dating service on the web.
The irony? He still can't find a date. Steve Klopf and Phil Father were
his associates in SEX.COM. They seem to regret ever knowing the man.
Kremen is so desperate to find a nice Jewish girl that he's offering a
reward of $25,000 to the person who sets him up with his future Jewish
bride or a woman willing to convert and marry. Even if the relationship
doesn't lead to marriage, he's offering a $1,000 donation to a Jewish
charity for the person who sets him up with a lady who's willing to go out
with him for at least 10 dates.
So what's the catch? You'll have to find someone willing to go out with
him. He's a former speed addict who would sometimes work for five days
straight without sleep. Kremen kicked the speed habit about 18 months ago,
but he's still addicted to his many business ventures. He's a workaholic
with multiple phone numbers that don't stop ringing. He is pudgy and
balding. His speech is fast-paced and nasally. George Costanza comes to
mind, without the glasses and possessing slightly more hair and a much
stronger entrepreneurial spirit.
But even George Costanza was loveable in his own way, like an irritable
teddy bear. The baby-faced Kremen has a similar appeal. He possesses a
combination of computer science genius and business acumen. He can be
charming and accommodating.
Ladies: Kremen has lots of potential. Unlike Costanza, Kremen is growing.
A personal trainer visits Kremen's house daily. He practices yoga on an
almost daily basis. He's eating healthier and he's even trying to be a
nicer boss and businessperson. This is not easy for somebody whose motto
could be "Sue Everybody."
Kremen's house is typical for the Rancho Santa Fe Covenant area, gorgeous
yet so big you could lose your soul somewhere in its seven bedrooms. In
the backdrop of the immense foyer, ripe lemons the size of softballs hang
proudly from trees that stand next to a tennis court, a pool adorned with
a magnificent fountain, and a hot tub, accoutrements requisite for a
neighborhood that's home to the Bancrofts (Wall Street Journal), the late
Joan Kroc (McDonald's) and even Bill Gates (a part-time resident).
"They wouldn't let me join the [Rancho Santa Fe] Association," says
Kremen. "It took me about eight months of lawyers and official deeds to be
able to join the Association." Kremen speculates that the powers-to-be in
the Association wouldn't let him join because of his high profile and the
nature of his business.
Like a gold-rush maverick of 150 years ago, Kremen gobbled up Internet
domain names during the '90s, on the hunch they would soon become valuable
virtual property. Two of the names he registered were Match.com and
Sex.com. He didn't do much with Sex.com, at least until it was stolen. In
October 1995, he realized that Network Solutions, central registrar for
all Internet domain names at the time, transferred ownership of Sex.com to
a five-time felon, Stephen Michael Cohen. All Cohen had to do to get
Sex.com was forge a letter and make a phone call to Network Solutions. He
didn't do it by e-mail because, as Cohen said in the letter, Sex.com
didn't have e-mail.
After a three-year legal battle that cost Kremen $4.4 million and left him
nearly broke, the courts returned Sex.com to Kremen in November 2000.
Cohen, who turned Sex.com into a half-million dollar-a-month pornography
site, was ordered to pay Kremen $65 million in damages. Cohen didn't pay a
cent. He fled the country and remains a fugitive, presumably living in
Mexico. (Up until 2001, Kremen was offering a $50,000 reward for his
capture.) After Cohen fled, Kremen took what he could. The house in Rancho
Santa Fe? That used to be Cohen's.
"I don't feel spooky at all living here," says Kremen. "For a while I
slept in the guest house, but now I'm over it."
Kremen doesn't give a grand tour of the house, which is mostly devoid of
furniture. "It's a typical frickin' house in Rancho Santa Fe," he laughs.
"You don't need the tour." Kremen's office, one of the only decorated
rooms in the house, is where his future-bride-to-be will most likely find
him.
The wooded walls of his office are adorned with framed articles and his
first job-wanted postings for Match.com. He points to a Forbes article
written about his success with Match.com and proudly says that, "I'd like
to think I've made a great contribution to the planet. I've created more
love than anybody else."
Despite his wealth from other Internet ventures, Kremen didn't make a lot
of money from Match.com. Even though the company was sold and resold for
$50 million, Kremen, according to the San Jose Mercury News, only got
$50,000 and a lifetime membership. You can still find his profile -
"thefounder" - on the site.
Asked how many millions he's worth, Kremen replies, "It depends on what
the value of Sex.com is. Maybe it's worth about five million." Kremen's
net worth on paper could be in the high seven figures to low eight
figures, considering all his investments and stakes in other companies.
(For a list of the companies he's involved with, visit Kremen.com.)
Despite his wealth Kremen doesn't want a trophy wife; he desires a family
with a strong Jewish identity, adhering to the religion's values and
morals. It's a tough claim when you're CEO of Sex.com but Kremen doesn't
see himself as a pornographer. "There's no hardcore imagery on Sex.com,"
he says. "You won't find any images on Sex.com that you wouldn't see on
cable TV."
Sex.com is a directory of online adult entertainment. The images and
language on the page are no more graphic than what you'd see on HBO's Real
Sex, but hardcore porn is only a click away.
"Hardcore porn is only a click away on AOL," Kremen counters.
Kremen is not addicted to pornography, nor does he seem like a pervert.
Although his presence is sometimes required at debauchery-laden adult
entertainment industry events, Kremen would rather pontificate on the
science behind computer search engines or Israeli-Palestinian relations.
Kremen's Jewish self-realization occurred during his sophomore year of
high school, when neo-Nazis planned to march through his hometown of
Skokie, Illinois, a heavily Jewish town with literally thousands of
Holocaust survivors. The neo-Nazis, with the help of the largely Jewish
American Civil Liberties Union, won the right to march but never did hit
the streets of Skokie. They held rallies in Chicago instead.
"The Nazi march made me want to learn more about my Jewish identity,"
Kremen says. "Why are these people against us; what did we do?"
Kremen considers himself a politically conservative Jew. He hates what he
calls "Jew-hating Jews," those who would attend a pro-Palestinian,
anti-Israeli demonstration. Spending several years in San Francisco,
Kremen encountered many liberal Jews. "The Jewish film festivals in San
Francisco would make me sick. If I were to donate to a Jewish charity in
San Francisco, the money might be used to buy potassium nitrate, which
would wind up strapped on a 17-year old suicide bomber." Kremen says he
donates to charities every month, such as CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy
in Middle East Reporting in America) and ASACP (Adult Sites Against Child
Porn).
Living alone, desiring a Jewish soul mate, and endlessly conducting
business affairs, Kremen admits he's lonely. "I'm the perfect example of
money not buying happiness," he says.
Kremen would actually make a good father and husband. His potential mate
would have to be nurturing and patient, enjoy decorating his empty house,
and not mind that even though he doesn't produce or sell the content, he
still profits from pornography. Any offers?
https://www.sdjewishjournal.com/stories/dec03_4.html
On May 19, 1994, Gary Kremen registered with Internet Solutions the most
valuable internet domain name Sex.com. Kremen got the name for free and
without any official contract. Over a year later, however, he found that
the name had been stolen from him by notorious felon Stephen Michael
Cohen. Kremen sued to regain the name and eventually prevailed on
11/27/00.
It was a long and bitter struggle for Kremen who went through a string of
lawyers until guided to victory by attorney Charles Carreon.
In 1998, Seth Warshavsky (ClubLove.com) and Ron Levi (Cybererotica.com)
agreed to help fund Kremen's legal fight to regain the domain name
Sex.com. After Warshavsky quickly dropped out of the deal, Levi kept
paying to the eventual tune of either $10,000 or $150,000, depending on
who you talk to, until he quit in disgust with Kremen's attorney of the
time Joel Dichter.
Kremen next gave the case to a female attorney (Katie Deamer) who seemed
intimidated by Cohen's crack legal team. She also appeared to be killing
Kremen's case, which looked dead until Gary brought on Carreon. Though
many, perhaps most, internet pornographers loathe Cohen, many of them did
not think his legal team could be beat. They were wrong.
Kremen and Carreon have disputed Carreon's fee for winning the case.
Charles says he deserves a piece of sex.com.
Cohen's a close friend of convicted crook Michael Milken. They spent time
in jail together in Northern California and they talk on the phone several
times a day. Stephen met his invaluable business partner Marshal Zolp, a
con artist, at the same correctional facility.
Zolp runs stock scams out of Tijuana. He's wanted by the FBI and federal
marshalls. American law enforcement can't get the Mexican authorities to
cooperate in the handing over of Zolp. Marshal lives under aliases and the
Mexican government is not concerned with American financial crimes.
Cohen got out jail first (in 1995). Zolp (who also uses the names James
Powell, Werner Wassler and Frank Williams) did time in a halfway house
where he created Sporting Houses Management. Zolp has talked about doing a
similar brothel in Costa Rica for the fishing industry.
Cohen, a friend of Las Vegas gambling empressario Steve Wynn, owns all the
companies connected to sex.com - YNATA, Sand Man, Ocean Fund
International, Omnitech. None of them have real boards of directors and
nobody else has ownership interest aside from Cohen. He made up the name
Sir William Douglas. He read it somewhere and decided to use it. But the
real man was never involved. Sand Man and Ocean Fund etc were established
to hide Cohen's ownership of Sex.com.
Cohen has incredible energy. He sleeps little. Very crude but interesting
say those who know him well. Marshall, a heavy drinker, is a consummate
gentleman but Steve is a vulgarian. Ocean Fund International's much
publicized offer to buy Caesars Palace in Las Vegas was a stock play, not
a publicity ploy. Cohen owned stock in the corporation expected to buy
Caesars, Starwood. He expected the stock in Starwood would plummet based
on the news that Caesars was being bought by someone else and then Cohen
would buy even more of the company.
From
www.redherring.com
2/7/00
"In 1995, Mr. Cohen, who had been recently released from federal prison
after serving an abbreviated 46-month sentence for bankruptcy fraud, false
statements, and obstruction of justice, began his plan of deception to
create his Internet company, according to the lawsuit, filed by an
attorney for Gary Kremen.
"According to Mr. Kremen, Network Solutions granted him use of the sex.com
domain name in 1994. Such names typically are valid for a two-year period
and are renewable every two years at the discretion of the party using the
name.
"Mr. Kremen claims that in 1995 Mr. Cohen fradulently wrote a letter to
himself using letterhead with the name "Online Classifieds Inc.," the name
of Mr. Kremen's business at the time. The letter stated that Mr. Kremen
had been dismissed from his position at the company and that he no longer
had rights to sex.com. The letter also stated that Mr. Cohen was
authorized to take title of the sex.com name.
"At the bottom of the letter was the signature of President "Sharon
Dimmick." Mr. Kremen, who still owned Online Classifieds at that time,
insists his company never employed a Sharon Dimmick. The letter was sent
to Network Solutions.
"In what should have been a red flag, the letter stated that Online
Classifieds didn't even have an Internet connection. In other words, such
a letter would be like Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) stating that Bill Gates
doesn't have Windows on his personal computer.
"In any event, Network Solutions granted the name to Mr. Cohen. Ever since
then, Mr. Kremen has been trying to wrestle back the sex.com name."
.............................
I spoke by phone Monday afternoon, 11/4/02, with sex.com owner Gary
Kremen.
Gary: "There are some really mean, vindictive people in this industry. It
seems that all those people do all day is knock the other people on forums
such as Oprano or GFY (go****yourself.com). If there was a legal attack on
the industry, everyone's running around like crazed kittens not working
together. It's impossible to herd kittens. In other industries, they get
cohesive around common external issues. Here there is so fragmented and
there are so many past squabbles, it's bad for the common good. This sort
of infighting is why the second temple [of the Jewish commonwealth 2000
years ago] fell. Because the Jews were fighting amongst themselves, the
Romans to come in and conquered."
Duc: "Do you believe the new VISA regulations as part of a
government-directed crackdown on the industry?"
Gary: "Maybe. It's sad if it is. Using a third party with the indirect
effect of censoring legal speech is wrong. It's unfortunate that there's
not a good unified industry response. It's kittens running around chasing
their tails, while the coyotes eat them up and spit them out."
Duc: "What kind of job do you think the Free Speech Coalition does in
representing your interests?"
Gary: "I don't think they are set up to focus on this fight - arcane but
important payment regulations. They're great on obscenity and closely
related issues. Here the industry needs a formal political action
committee (PAC). It needs legislative protection rather than legal
protection, which is has already thanks to people like the FSC. The FSC
doesn't lobby congress or build political coalitions on an issue like Visa
regulations.
"I am a founding member of refocused ASACP (Adult Sites Against Child
Porn). Everyone wants us to do something about everything. Doing
everything in the world would be insane mission creep that would be
negative in effect. We should focus on getting rid of child porn. Child
porn is illegal as well as immoral. The benefits to the industry in
getting rid of it would be to deflect government interference. I think the
best thing we could do on an effective level would be boycott any payment
processor that have automatic processing for anything that could be used
to enable child porn. Without money, most of these sites would be in
trouble. This if certain major payment processors [such as ccBill]
hypothetically did not check and periodically recheck every web site (by
hand) using their services for child porn content or that their customer's
site have child porn affiliates (thus receiving traffic from those with
unclean hands), those payment processors should be boycotted, with their
officers personally sued and jailed. Anyone using such a payment
processing services that enables child porn is just as guilty as the
processors itself.
"I am worried that tomorrow, Election Day, there might be a change in the
balance of power not as favorable to the industry. Thus, the bad apples
(whether consciously or not bad apples) should be tossed to keep
unwarranted attention away from the law abiding, tax paying pornographer."
Duc: "Do you regard yourself as part of the XXX industry?"
Gary: "Yes, especially if you define the industry broadly. We're in the
traffic industry, primarily adult. We don't make content or sell it but we
bring qualified customers to those people."
Duc: "Why did you choose to get into the industry rather than rent or sell
out the name sex.com?"
Gary: "That's an excellent question. I thought I could make more money. It
shows how stupid I am. I think many of the issues that the adult industry
faces are interesting. If people focus on these issues in a business
manner rather than a crazy way, more money can be made. It's similar to
the entertainment industry. When corporations came in, they figured out
how to make true money. Paramount Pictures probably doesn't have the same
fun that an independent movie producer has. Sad, but true. I'm having fun,
at least some of the time."
Duc: "So you don't regret stepping in?"
Gary: "When people I don't even know blast me on forums like Oprano.com,
it pisses me off and makes me depressed. I don't even know these people.
Who's Hooper? What have I ever done to him? If he did not seem to have
such a little dick, I would crush him like a bug, but he is not even worth
the time to talk about.
"I feel sorry for Ron Levi. Everyone attacks the guy and it just makes him
more defensive - it would make any normal person more defensive. As far as
I know, he's a nice guy. (A long time ago, he and Seth sued me over
sex.com). He keeps people such as Lee Noga and Kaiser motivated - he
clearly recognized the value in people. The boards make him out to be a
SOB. As far as I know, Ron's a good father, caring for his children
greatly, a good employer and contributes to the community. He doesn't date
flashy women. He's dating somebody nice, not a porn star like others.
"If we were making tefillin [Jewish religious articles], this would not
happen to us. Would you go on a tefillin online board and talk about other
people in the tefillin industry? Say that their girlfriends are fat and
losers? They don't do that. That's so dysfunctional. We need industry
therapy as much as we need a political action group [PAC]. We could use is
a mass SWAT invasion of therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists; I
volunteer to be the first analyzed."
Duc: "So are you dating the world's most beautiful women?"
Gary: "No, I'm not even getting ANY dates. As you know, I started
Match.Com, the worlds largest dating service. I want a nice Jewish girl
and I'm not finding any. I haven't found one nice Jewish girl in the
entire industry. If you know one, ICQ me immediately."
Duc: "What role did Serge play in getting sex.com back to you?
Gary: "Serge was one of the first people who told me about a lot of
Cohen's antics, his strategies and tactics. I'm going to see Serge and Sue
this weekend in Oregon. He's been supportive, to the extent that Serge is
supportive of anyone. He might rip me to shreds on the boards tomorrow. He
has his opinions on people. Serge is very smart."
Duc: "What's going on with sex.com?"
Gary: "People are getting disgusted with certain weaknesses in the
affiliate model. Many people think they're being shaved [not paid for all
their traffic and signups]. A lot of people would rather be paid on a
per-click basis than any other basis. People would rather buy traffic from
us at fixed prices, with a cost, on average, of $10 per signup. We
currently have 1347 customers.
"We break up traffic by country. If you are a US webmaster in an affiliate
program, traffic from France doesn't help you because you can't convert it
or usually get paid for it. Scams have been going on for years where
people send traffic that is not convertible. If you want midget traffic
from France, we can give you midget traffic from France seeking midget
porn."
Duc: "When did you take over the operation of sex.com?"
Gary: "I got it back in October of 2001. I was working with SE Guru aka
Daron Babbin. He moved on last October to New Frontier (NOOF). I hear he
is doing a very good job there."
Duc: "How do you plan to develop sex.com?"
Gary: "We plan to add an entertainment aspect to it but we won't be
selling content or creating content. We're good at convincing the
mainstream to work with the adult. Peiple can create content or sell it
10,000 times better than me."
Duc: "You bridge between mainstream search engines and sex traffic?"
Gary: "Do you think mainstream search engines like Google want to have
their sales force go call on facials sites? They worry about getting sued
for hostile work environments, sexual harassment, etc.. They'd rather deal
with adult site directly as little as possible while at the same time
getting the money from the industry. It's better for them when they have
an outside source they can trust to deal. We specialize in screening out
the child porn, bestiality, scat, or rape sites - the illegal or immoral
sites. We don't want to make money off that. Mainstream search engines
don't want to either."
Duc: "How many books are in the works on you and the sex.com case?"
Gary: "Several. Most are independent journalists like you. About nine
months ago, Sheri Singer Productions approached me about doing a TV movie
on sex.com and the adult industry in general. I signed a deal with them in
late September. They've hired a writer. Sheri Singer worked with Norman
Lear and was the executive producer of the Phil Donahue show."
Kremen has received write-ups in numerous newspapers. Here is a sample:
Newsday 3/5/95
"Electronic cash will let the Internet take over TV," David Chaum,
managing director of DigiCash, told a reporter. "Quote me."
Another gushing man crammed a card into Chaum's hand with the name of a
San Francisco company that did not exist a year ago. It had to happen, he
explained, because the whole world will need what he has to offer very,
very soon.
"Classified online - it's the future," said Gary Kremen, president of
Match.com. "It makes sense. Doesn't it?"
Atlanta Journal and Constitution 12/6/98:
Kevin Sinclair, who lives in a Silicon Valley suburb, is the lucky owner
of
https://www.computer.com,
presumably one of the most valuable domain names on the World Wide Web.
And now he wants to sell it for at least $500,000. So far the highest
bidder has offered $300,000.
His associate representing him, Gary Kremen, insists Sinclair is not a
speculator but that he planned to start an online computer store when he
acquired the name in 1994. He quickly realized he did not have a shot in
such a competitive market, even with the right address. So he left the
working world to stay home with his children.
Kremen may be just the right guy to help him make a deal: Kremen was
involved in the negotiations between Digital Equipment Corp. and Jack
Marshall, who until earlier this year owned the address
www.altavista.com.
Digital, which owns the AltaVista search engine, paid Marshall $3 million
to give the name up, reportedly the largest amount ever paid for a domain
name.
San Jose Mercury News 2/9/99:
And often they fear ruining their maverick reputation. Such fear is
keeping Gary Kremen, 35, from launching his fourth company, at least for
now. "When you start a company, everyone knows it," he says. "It's made me
a little bit gun-shy. It's a type of performance anxiety."
Among his ventures was the Web-based dating service Match.com, which was
sold to Cendant Corp. for about $7 million in 1997. Currently, the San
Francisco resident is advising several existing businesses, including one
that puts advertising on golf driving ranges. What he calls his "risk
profile" -- his tolerance for risk -- is "temporarily lower."
..............
British Documentary About Sex.com Scandal
7/24/04
I've just watched a one-hour documentary about the Gary Kremen - Stephen
Michael Cohen struggle over the domain name sex.com made by the British
television production company called Making Time for UK's Channel 5
network.
A young Gary Kremen (rightful owner of sex.com) with his parents Gary
Kremen Luke Gary Jones, Orange County Sheriff's Department Sharon
Boydston, an ex-wife of Cohen Kevin Blatt, Jonathan Silverstein Tom Hymes
of AVN Online Luke Kremen Lawyer Jim Wagstaffe Ron Levi
There's enough Jews in the special to make a minyan: Stephen Michael
Cohen, Gary Kremen, Luke, Kevin Blatt, Jonathan Silverstein, Ron Levi,
Seth Warshavsky.
I remember producer Toby Dye and his cameraman stopping by my hovel
December 10. I find Brits particularly charming and funny.
This tabloid is particularly tabloid and British in tone. Those wild and
crazy Americans. About a third of the screen time is taken up by softcore
footage of beautiful naked young women.
There's not much new ground that's broken here and there's one segment
devoted to a reconstruction of a shoot-out in Mexico that probably never
happened.
"I had the most valuable domain name on the Internet," says Gary at the
beginning, sitting on the bed of a pickup truck next to a shack. "I
should've made hundreds of millions of dollars. And this is what I ended
up with."
He spreads his arms wide.
"It was impossible not to make money," says Tom Hymes about the early days
of the porn Web (1996-97), "no matter how stupid and inept you were."
"It was a battle for a multi-million dollar business," intones the
narrator, "that would end with a high-noon shootout in Mexico."
Baloney. This shootout never happened. It just makes for a dramatic
climax.
Gary Kremen was born in 1960s Chicago to respectable middle-class Jewish
parents. "His love was for the hard-drive, not the hardcore. In May 1994,
he acquired sex.com (along with jobs.com, date.com, autos.com,
housing.com, property.com), the most valuable domain name on the Web."
"Cohen is a criminal genius," says Gary.
"Cohen's a con man, a crook," says Luke. "He's always been a crook. He'll
probably always be a crook. It's breathtaking when you encounter someone
who can lie with such audacity."
"He has the lying skills unique to conmen," says Gary Kremen's lawyer Jim
Wagstaffe.
"He's a megalomaniac and a sociopath," says Kremen's PI.
"Never any guilt," says Sharon Boydston, one of Cohen's five ex-wives.
They married in 1987.
In 1987, Cohen started up a swing club in north Orange County (called The
Club) and a BBS (Bulletin Board Service, a precursor to the WWW) The
French Connection.
"He started it in my daughter's bedroom," says Sharon. "He would sit there
and type in different names and be different people. Always women. He was
trying to attract men customers.
"When I was married to him, I asked him, why does everything you do have
to do with sex? He said, because sex sells.
"I'm sitting at home wondering what could be taking this man's time so
much. Finally I find out he's been swinging.
"He wanted to be Hugh Hefner. When the guys arrested him at his swing
club, they had to laugh because he came out in his robe and his pipe and
he was trying to be the Hugh Hefner of swinging. He just made them roar
with laughter."
Cohen then moved on to new scams. He impersonated a lawyer in an elaborate
loan fraud. He got four years in federal prison.
"While he was in prison," says Luke, "he thought, I'm going to figure out
how I can avoid coming back here and how I can make a lot of money and be
a big success and sleep with a lot of beautiful women. This is a guy who's
devoted himself to banging babes."
"In the old days," says Kevin Blatt, "you had to go to jack shacks, where
truck drivers and the guys with no teeth would pay five dollars for five
minutes to whack off in a booth. Sometimes they would share a movie with
some derelict. Now, with the advent of the Internet, you're sitting in the
privacy of your own home with your pants around your ankles and there's
nobody to say, hey, what are you doing? This is what's brilliant about the
Internet. You turn off the lights. You turn on your computer. You pull
your pants down. It's a great formula."
"It took three years in federal prison," says the narrator, "for Stephen
Michael Cohen to hatch the greatest Internet scam of all time."
"I knew that when he when he went into federal prison," says Sharon, "God
help us, because he was going to pick the minds of everybody there. If
there was anybody he could learn something from, he would learn it."
Kieren McCarthy, journalist: "Just months after getting out of prison,
Cohen managed to get his hands on the world's most valuable domain name.
He was turning that into a multi-million pound business right under the
nose of Gary Kremen, who did not even know it had been stolen."
Kremen lawyer Charles Carreon: "A friend called him up and said, I thought
you owned sex.com. You ought to check the Whois registration record,
because it is registered to Sporting Houses."
Gary: "I'd never dealt with any criminals or confidence men. I didn't
expect any bad play. I expected the company made a mistake."
To get sex.com, Stephen Michael Cohen wrote a letter from a third party to
another third party, giving Networld Solutions permission to transfer the
domain name to Cohen. There were over 20 typos in the letters. The word
"Ads" was misspelled in the letterhead as "Ad's."
The letter says the reason Cohen is entitled to this name is that he has
been using "sex.com" on his BBS since 1979. Cohen told me this several
times. Problem -- the dot com nomenclature did not begin until 1984.
Network Solutions should have known that.
A simple phone call to Gary Kremen would've revealed that letter as a
phony.
"He [Cohen] was an IQ of a genius," says Sharon, "yet the insecurities of
not being able to spell were profound for him."
But Cohen was a genius on the telephone, and that's how he persuaded
Network Solutions to give him the domain name.
"Stephen Michael Cohen used sex.com as a banner farm," says Luke. "He just
plastered it with banner ads for other hardcore porn paysites. He didn't
have any pretense to doing anything but slutty dirty lowdown site that
made tens of millions of dollars."
The documentary claims that Cohen had become one of the top three Internet
porn kings along with Seth Warshavsky of Clublove.com and Ron Levi.
That is nonsense. Neither Cohen nor Warshavsky were ever in the top ten of
the industry. Yishai Habari, Serge Birbrair, the folks running Crescent,
John Bennett, Joseph Elkind, Richard and Robert Botto were all bigger
players than Cohen or Warshavsky would ever be.
"Seth Warshavsky had so many scams," says Luke, "it was hard to keep track
of them. Once he would get people's credit card numbers, good night. He'd
charge those things up the yazoo. He'd claim to have live cam girl feeds
when he was just looping old feeds."
It's funny to see Jonathan Silverstein and Kevin Blatt sitting together on
a railing and Kevin looking around and scratching himself while Jonathan
is talking. KB wears a white sweat suit and sunglasses and a fu manchu
style beard and moustache. JStyles has a piercing in his eyebrow and an
earring.
There's a bottle of Jack Daniels off camera. KB and JStyle started
drinking halfway through the interview.
Cohen was charging $50,000 a month for each tiny banner ad. Cohen used his
money to keep Kremen's lawyers at bay.
Gary: "Stephen Michael Cohen did not have many friends in the industry.
You could count them on one hand. You could count his enemies on 50
hands."
Jonathan: "Cohen was a litigious prick. He was suing everybody who had
'sex' in their domain."
Kieren McCarthy, journalist: "In 1998, Seth Warshavsky and Ron Levi gave
Gary $150,000 for his legal fight against Cohen."
I believe this number is wildly exaggereated. Warshavsky didn't give Gary
anything. Ron gave him somewhere between $10,000 to $50,000 (according to
various reports).
Jim Wagstaffe: "Stephen Cohen was beating Gary in the litigation game by
using the very money he stole from Gary."
In July 2000, Cohen was forced to do a deposition.
"We had to cross a gulf in the law," says lawyer Charles Carreon. "At that
time, there was no law about domain names."
"We had to convince the judge," says Wagstaffe, "that this was more than
two guys fighting over an adult domain name."
Kieren: "To most people in the courtroom, it was just a sleazy affair
between two sex-obsessed pornographers."
Cohen was forced to produce his bank records. He had his bank fax them to
a kinkos where Kremen's lawyer were supposed to pick them up. But Gary
impersonated one of Kremen's lawyers and took out the stuff he didn't want
revealed. Unfortunately for Cohen, a Kinkos security camera captured him
in the act.
"When we caught him on tape stealing evidence," says Gary, "the judge
became livid."
In March 2001, Gary returned to San Francisco to launch his version of the
Web site.
"Kim Wilde is our resident porn star," says Gary. "Every company in the
industry should have a resident porn star."
Does that mean everyone in the company gets to f--- her?
"Gary's girlfriends and the women around him," says a Kremen employee, "he
needs intellectuals around him."
Cut to pictures of Wilde getting nasty to Gary's approval. He spanks her.
"Gary views Stephen Cohen as a criminal mastermind. He respects Mr. Cohen,
which I don't understand."
"I'm not into pornography," says Gary. "All I do is have a dictionary up
there.
"When Cohen had sex.com, it was much more valuable than when I got it."
At Kremen's party, a guy puts his arm around Gary and says to the camera,
"It's all about rock n' roll, call girls, and having a good time."
"I wouldn't go that far," says Gary, slipping out of his grasp and away
from the camera.
"He's not in the adult online industry," says Silverstein, "in his mind.
He believes he's in the search engine business."
Gary's PI: "Cohen has a narcissistic personality. He's a megalomaniac and
a sociopath. He only cares about himself. He has a superiority complex. He
thinks he's smarter than everyone else. I think he thinks he's untouchable
and that will be his fatal flaw."
Gary: "He's defeated such people as five ex-wives, many gambling casinos,
fraud, child support..."
Several years ago, Kremen sent Cohen a check under a different name, to a
house in Mexico his private investigators suspected Cohen used, in hopes
Cohen would cash it and surrender personal information. But Cohen didn't
fall for the trick. Kremen says he returned the check in the mail with a
note saying "Nice try" with an inflatable doll. Kremen still has the doll.
Kremen's quest
Were he not a successful entrepreneur, Gary Kremen might jump off the
pages of a comic book. The Chicago native crackles with pinball-machine
energy.
The self-described workaholic was forced out of Match.com, the popular
online dating service he co-founded, when he objected to selling it for $7
million to consumer-services company Cendant in 1997. (Kremen's instincts
were right: Cendant quickly hawked Match.com to Ticketmaster
Online-CitySearch for $50 million.)
"Gary is good as anyone ââ¬â including the Google guys ââ¬â at
Internet marketing," says Ron Posner, a longtime venture capitalist who
helped fund Match.com.
Despite his legal odyssey to regain Sex.com ââ¬â which he says cost
him $4.5 million in legal fees ââ¬â Kremen isn't crying poor. Last
year, VeriSign, the Internet address keeper that acquired NSI, paid Kremen
a settlement stemming from a 1998 lawsuit filed by Kremen. As part of the
2001 court ruling, Kremen received an 8,900-square-foot mansion near San
Diego that was once owned by Cohen.
"I've done OK," says Kremen, who says he rakes in $8 million a year in
advertising revenue from Sex.com, a hub of adult-entertainment Web sites
offering products and services.
But, like Cohen, Kremen says he doesn't like porn and finds it dull. "It's
just another commodity," he says. Given his druthers, he would rather be
an investor. Like Cohen, he pines for success in another profession.
https://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2005-03-31-sexcom_x.htm
