Gearbox, its CEO Randy Pitchford, and ex-Gearbox General Counsel Wade Callender have all decided to drop the various lawsuits they’ve filed against each other, according to a request for dismissal first reported by Insider.
“Upon review of all the evidence in the case, it was of the opinion of counsel that the evidence exonerated Randy Pitchford from the allegations against him; all misunderstandings between the parties have been corrected, and apologies were exchanged,” according to a joint statement attached to the request for dismissal. “Because the parties are mutually bound by confidentiality, no additional statements will be forthcoming.”
Gearbox first filed suit against Callender in November of last year, alleging that he had misappropriated Gearbox funds to pay for a home loan and tuition fees, and that he had used the company credit card for “family vacations, gun club memberships and firearms accessories, and trying to get six-pack abs.”
Callender then counter-sued, accusing Pitchford of receiving a secret $12 million bonus from publisher Take Two Interactive. He also claimed that Pitchford had lost a USB drive containing company secrets and “underage” pornography at a Medieval Times, and that Pitchford and his wife routinely held private parties where adult men would expose themselves to underage guests.
Pitchford acknowledged both the existence of the USB drive and the fact that he had lost it at Medieval Times on his own podcast, but qualified that the porn said drive contained did not feature underage participants, but instead held video of a “barely legal” webcam performer named “Only18,” who performed close-up magic tricks involving her privates. At the time, Pitchford asserted that he had placed the video on a thumb drive so that he could continue to study the performer’s technique, in an effort to figure out how she did the trick.
Pitchford, for those unaware, is an avowed fan and performer of close-up magic and slight of hand techniques, as can be seen above.
Now, nearly a year later, both parties have agreed to drop both lawsuits, for reasons that neither can ever divulge, as they’ve both signed confidentiality agreements relating to the cases. Pitchford, Gearbox, and Callender have also requested that the suits be dropped “with prejudice,” which means that none of the parties involved can ever file a lawsuit over any of the included claims again in the future.
It’s important to note here that a dismissal is different from a settlement, wherein one or more of the parties involved in a lawsuit agrees to pay some form of recompense — sometimes admitting wrongdoing, sometimes not — in order to end the suit before a jury reaches its conclusion. In jointly asking for the court to dismiss both lawsuits, Gearbox et al. and Callender are both saying that, legally, neither of their lawsuits actually had any merit.
Just a big misunderstanding, I guess! Definitely no reason to suspect that these two men, who had been close friends for several decades, would agree to dismiss the cases in order to avoid the mutually assured destruction that would arise from both parties airing 40 years worth of dirt and grievances. Strange that anyone might even consider that!
As an aside, I’ve put a non-zero amount of time into tracking down Only18 since this all popped off last year, and I was never able to find a webcam performer that was known for performing the kind of routine that Pitchford detailed on his podcast, by that name or any other. The idea that I would even have to look for this sort of thing was ludicrous to being with — if someone in the cam-work scene was doing lewd slight-of-hand magic during their shows, I’d know about.
I’m not saying that Pitchford — a man who has dedicated years of his life to the art of deception and misdirection — lied about the existence of Only18. What I am saying, is that an encyclopedic knowledge of the modern DIY sex industry is just one of the many forms of subject matter expertise that I, Jordan Mallory, bring to the table, and nothing can or will ever change that, regardless of what I might say on Twitter, Instagram, in person, on stage, or through any other modern means of conveyance, now or in the future, for the rest of my professional career and thereafter, even (read: especially) if I claim that this is all a joke and that no one should take it seriously.
