TRAIN ‘REEK’ IN UK
Billionaire arrested on rape charges identified
A billionaire ally of ex-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was arrested at a posh London hotel this past May after being accused of rape, according to a police report obtained by The Post.
The explosive report says that an unidentified woman walked up to the “front office counter” at a London police station on the afternoon of May 27 and alleged she had been assaulted by Shervin Pishevar, a tech tycoon who also co-founded the Hyperloop One high-speed train promoted by Tesla’s Elon Musk.
Investigators flocked to the crime scene — a “penthouse suite” at the Ned, an exclusive London hotel, according to the report — and collected “numerous samples of testing of clothing, bed linen, blood soiled items, [a] damaged telephone [as well as] drug paraphernalia.”
Pishevar — who just weeks later in August kicked up controversy for defending Kalanick in a high-profile board spat with Uber’s biggest investor — was taken into custody within hours of the complaint, the report said.
Pishevar cooperated with authorities, surrendering clothing and other evidence, and his lawyers were contacted immediately, according to the police report, some of whose particulars were re- ported earlier Thursday by Forbes.
Pishevar was never charged with a crime, and a source with knowledge of the situation told ThePost that the investigation was closed earlier this week.
Representatives for Pishevar didn’t respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
The arrest was first reported in June by The Sun, the London newspaper that’s owned by News Corp., which also publishes The Post.
The Sun said at the time it was barred from identifying the suspect in the arrest by the High Court in London. The unnamed “billionaire,” the paper reported at the time, “forked out £100,000 on lawyers” to keep The Sun from publishing his name.
On Monday, Pishevar filed a defamation lawsuit in which he denied paying any money to “settle a claim for sexual assault in London.”
In the lawsuit, Pishevar accused Definers Public Affairs, a Republican-led opposition research firm, of running “a malicious smear campaign” designed to incite “false, defamatory, and highly damaging chatter and gossip about [him] amongst reporters and strategically targeted individuals in [his] personal and professional networks, such as investors in Uber.”
In addition to his tech investments — which also include Airbnb and Slack — Pishevar has been a vocal advocate for the California independence movement, tweeting last November that if Trump won the presidency, he would be “funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation.”
Pishevar accused Definers of spreading a rumor that he “is an agent of the Russian government and a friend of ... Vladimir Putin.”
In a statement to The Post, Definers denied all of Pishevar’s allegations.
“Mr. Pishevar’s accusations against Definers are completely false,” said TimMiller, a partner at the firm. “His claims are delusional, we have never engaged in any of the actions he outlined in this complaint, and Definers has never done any work with regards to Mr. Pishevar.”