The story of Storyopolis, a children's bookstore and movie company, began once upon a time in 1994 with a new partnership and high hopes. Billionaire businessman Paul Allen and Hollywood deal-maker Abbie Phillips were in sync—he with the money, she with the connections. Together they would produce sophisticated animated films for kiddies and profit for themselves.
But within a few years the once-happy saga took an unexpected plot twist marked by name-calling, dissolution, and lawyers at 10 paces. By last year, the fairy-tale business venture had became a corporate parable: Careful, it's a Jungle Book out there.
Today the bitter final chapter is unfolding in adult-rated court documents, revealing accusations of lying, stealing, sex, and power moves—typified by this remarkable legal exchange last September in Seattle:
A group is gathered on the 27th floor of the 1201 Third Avenue Building. It is late afternoon. Sworn testimony is being taken for a court deposition. Among those standing and seated around the conference room is a small-time California attorney named David Yardley. He is questioning Jo Allen Patton, a top executive for Vulcan Northwest Inc., Paul Allen's mega-corporation. Yardley is asking Patton about her boss and brother, the third-richest man in America. It's a question not thought to be on record anywhere else.
"Do you," the attorney says, "have any belief that your brother has been or is celibate?"
The momentary silence is broken by the voice of Nancy Abell, Allen and Patton's defense attorney. "Objection!" says Abell. "That is a completely outrageous question! It's an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy and I instruct the witness not to answer the question. That's outrageous!"
What? asks Yardley. "In a sexual harassment case you are going to instruct the witness not to answer if her brother is celibate or has any knowledge of it?"
There's a pause as the room bears the weight of the moment. All that's at stake here is the reputation of one of the world's more enigmatic and most wealthy individuals. Or rather, what that reputation truly is.
By most accounts, Allen is no Gordon Gecko, the fictitious tyrant in the movie Wall Street. For the boyish 45-year-old, greed seems good only if some of those profits go to others. The Mercer Island tycoon backs worthy civic causes, makes sizable charity donations (giving $500,000 just last week to aid Kosovo refugees), and is a known tree-hugger. He often has his 76-year-old mother or 41-year-old sister in tow, and while he's had a girlfriend or two, he appears content with lifelong bachelorhood. He has so far outfought Hodgkin's disease and associates say he's happiest among friends and family in low-profile social settings, although he's reportedly tickled that his walled-off hideaway in Beverly Hills has made the latest edition of Hollywood's Movie Star Homes & Hangouts map.
Still, behind that bespectacled exterior there schemes a man of great influence, more inaccessible than shy, politically brokering a half-billion-dollar Seattle stadium deal after voters rejected it, running summer campers off a San Juan island peninsula to build another of his six homes, and erecting a controversial Seattle Center museum, originally in honor of Jimi Hendrix, that critics say visually rivals a onetime eyesore up the street, the Queen Anne Blob. His corporate checkbook is both intimidating and legendary: One day he cashes in $385.2 million in stock, another day he forks over $7.3 billion for two cable TV companies. In between he deals for a dozen Internet and software companies, buys and sells professional athletes, constructs skyscraping villages, then jets to Europe, parties at his French villa, and cruises with lovely women on his 199-foot yacht in the Mediterranean.
You have to think that, despite the mild-mannered persona, Paul Allen's testosterone must sometimes gush like quicksilver.
At least that's the belief of Malibu attorney Yardley and his client Phillips. She is suing Allen for breach of contract and, more importantly, sexual battery. According to Phillips, Allen sexually attacked her in 1996 at his $68 million Mercer Island estate. A year later, she says, he fired her from their West Hollywood multimedia company, Storyopolis, in retaliation for resisting sexual advances.
Movie director Peter Gilbert says Phillips told him about the incident within 48 hours. But Allen strongly denies any assault and says Phillips was fired for misuse of funds.
Which brings us back to the memorable exchange last September afternoon.
Yardley has shrugged off the celibacy question and changed direction. He's in a position to ask some extraordinary personal questions and doesn't miss a one.
"As you sit here today," he says to Patton, "do you believe that your brother had sexual relations with Megan Taylor?"
"Objection!" Abell interrupts again. Taylor is Allen's ex-girlfriend, who was also fired from her manager's job at Storyopolis, and who was replaced by Phillips. What Allen and Taylor did in private years ago was no one's business, says Abell.
Yardley adjusts his question again. "Do you believe," he asks Patton, "they slept together?"
"Objection!" says Abell. "It's an invasion of privacy."
OK, says the persistent Yardley, regrouping. "But you do believe that [Taylor] has stayed overnight at his estate on more than one occasion, correct?"
