A former Grindr employee, using the name John Doe, has filed a lawsuit against the dating app company saying a Human Resources supervisor drugged him at a 2016 holiday party, and then raped him in a hotel room.
According to the suit, Daniel Cabanero has been named as the one who drugged him, allegedly put him in a car, and took him to a hotel room where he woke up to find himself being raped.
Doe says he passed out again during the act, but immediately went to a hospital emergency room when he woke up for a rape exam.
Doe says he informed law enforcement and he believes the investigation is still ongoing.
Additionally, Doe alleges other Grindr employees knew what was happening at the party and didn’t move to protect him.
According to Doe, the office environment at Grindr is rife with sexual comments and innuendo.
A 20-year-old man pleaded guilty on Monday to federal charges that he targeted gay men through a dating app in a series of Collin and Denton County home invasions earlier this year.
Chancler Encalade, along with three other men, used Grindr, a dating app for gay men, to arrange meetings with victims at their homes in Frisco, Plano and Aubrey, according to a Department of Justice news release.
The four men restrained their victims with tape, assaulted them, made derogatory statement about their sexual orientation and stole various property, according to the Justice Department. The crimes took place in January and February.
The other men involved, Nigel Garrett, Anthony Shelton and Cameron Ajiduah, have also pleaded guilty to federal charges and are awaiting sentencing.
Encalade faces a maximum life sentence and a $250,000 fine.
According to the plea agreement, Encalade admitted that he, Nigel Garrett, and Anthony Shelton used Grindr, a social media dating platform for gay men, to arrange to meet the victim at the victim’s home. Upon entering the victim’s home, the defendants restrained the victim with tape, physically assaulted the victim, and made derogatory statements to the victim for being gay. The defendants brandished a firearm during the home invasion, and they stole the victim’s property, including his motor vehicle.
A federal grand jury previously had returned an eighteen-count superseding indictment, against Encalade and three other men, which included charges for hate crimes, kidnappings, carjackings, and the use of firearms to commit violent crimes. The indictment also charged the defendants with conspiring to cause bodily injury because of the victims’ sexual orientation
After an enormous uproar over The Daily Beast publishing a sleazy, unscrupulous article wherein a “reporter” fired up Grindr down at the Rio Olympics and attempted to schedule “dates” for what ended up being a mocking, homophobic and condescending result, the editors posted this message to readers announcing the article has now been removed.
Today, The Daily Beast took an unprecedented but necessary step: We are removing an article from our site, “The Other Olympic Sport In Rio: Swiping.”
The Daily Beast does not do this lightly. As shared in our editor’s note earlier today, we initially thought swift removal of any identifying characteristics and better clarification of our intent was the adequate way to address this. Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary. We were wrong. We’re sorry. And we apologize to the athletes who may have been inadvertently compromised by our story.
Today we did not uphold a deep set of The Daily Beast’s values. These values—which include standing up to bullies and bigots, and specifically being a proudly, steadfastly supportive voice for LGBT people all over the world—are core to our commitment to journalism and to our commitment to serving our readers.
As a newsroom, we succeed together and we fail together, and this was a failure on The Daily Beast as a whole, not a single individual. The article was not intended to do harm or degrade members of the LGBT community, but intent doesn’t matter, impact does. Our hope is that removing an article that is in conflict with both our values and what we aspire to as journalists will demonstrate how seriously we take our error.
We were wrong. We will do better.
The author of the piece, Nico Hines, has remained silent throughout the entire debacle.
When Jesse decides to find his true self, he logs onto Grindr – the gay geosocial networking, and notoriously known, hook-up app. Delving into an underworld he never knew existed, he finds himself transported to the ‘scene’ with new-found freedoms of anonymous sex, promiscuity, and general male horniness. Jesse discovers fresh feelings deep inside himself with the help of his heavenly chorus of Grindr boys, as well as realizing the dangers of an unending dispensary of men.
Will Jesse find what he’s looking for or become dependent on the app that uncovered his new self?
With music and lyrics by JACOB TISCHLER (Inexperienced Love @ Fringe NYC 2012, Secondhand Shakespeare Best Book & Lyrics @ WVMTF 2012) and a book by JACOB TISCHLER & BRYCE CUTLER (The Physical Impossibility) with direction by BENJAMIN VIERTEL (Best Director @ WVMTF 2012).
Urban Dictionary defines Grindr as a “location based iPhone/iTouch App for gay, bi, and curious men to meet”, but most people assume that gay men use it just to hook up.
Watch these nine straight guys scroll through the infamous app to see what’s really down the rabbit hole.
