Dr. Wallach’s sex life a focal point in Youngevity Wakaya lawsuit
As part of their ongoing legal dispute with Youngevity, Wakaya perfection served Dr. Joel Wallach with discovery interrogatories.
Said interrogatories demand Wallach
identify each and every person with whom he has entered into a legal marriage, domestic partnership, cohabitation, or substantially similar relationship and the dates on which such relationship commenced.
Wakaya Perfection also want Wallach to
identify … any Youngevity Distributor with whom he has had or attempted to have any degree of intimate physical contact.
Yup, they went there.
Grab your popcorn folks, we’re going under the covers…
The dispute between Wakaya Perfection and Youngevity stems from claims that Wakaya Perfection launch by gutted Youngevity.
Wakaya Perfection denies the claims and filed a counter-claim in response.
In their counter-claim Wakaya Perfection allege, among other things, that
Dr. Wallach frequently engaged in a pattern of traveling with and sharing hotel rooms at Youngevity events with a variety of female companions other than his wife, some of whom are Youngevity distributors.
Those claims and related discovery are currently at the center of a legal battle between the two companies.
Youngevity describe their founder, Dr. Joel Wallach (right), as
a 77 year old man who is neither an owner, officer, director, shareholder, employee, nor distributor of Youngevity, Dr. Wallach has no legal right, power, or authority to bind or compel any Youngevity distributor to do anything.
Dr. Wallach’s son, Steve Wallach, is CEO of the company. Steve’s wife Michelle Wallach is Youngevity’s Chief Operating Officer.
In their own words, Youngevity describe Dr. Wallach’s role within Youngevity as follows:
Dr. Wallach travels most of the year giving health and nutrition seminars for the benefit of Youngevity distributors, he having originally founded the company and having designed its essential nutritional formulations.
Distributors can contact Youngevity to request to schedule Dr. Wallach to speak at their events, but that scheduling is not contractually required and is entirely dependent on his availability and interest.
If they schedule Dr. Wallach to speak, they must pay for Dr. Wallach’s meals,
lodging, meeting rooms, and ground transportation.To save money, distributors often ask Dr. Wallach to share a room with several distributors, regardless of gender.
Wakaya Perfection claim these arrangements are a cover for bunga-bunga parties, entered into by female affiliates with the aim of gaining a financial edge within Youngevity.
Despite alleging that Dr. Wallach had sex with Youngevity distributors in exchange for downline positions, Wakaya has presented no direct factual evidence in support, depending instead on rumor and innuendo.
Moreover, Wakaya has not explained how Dr. Wallach, who lacks corporate power or authority to cause downline changes could cause a change against a distributor’s will or to any distributor’s economic disadvantage.
Personally I’d have thought when your son is running the company you founded, how you’d go about (allegedly) manipulating downlines would be obvious.
I mean it’s not like Joel and Steve Wallach are complete strangers now, are they.
Offering up the same sentiment, Wakaya Perfection state;
Regardless of his technical legal authority, Dr. Wallach exercises enormous influence and control over and within Youngevity.
He is the founder and the face of the company.
On June 12th Wakaya Perfection alleged in court that Dr. Wallach had slept with Brandy Brogdon and Charmaine Murphy, two former highly ranked Youngevity affiliates.
Via sworn affidavits, both women deny the allegations.
When pressed to identify which Youngevity affiliates had been given cushy affiliate positions in exchange for bow-chika-wowwow with Dr. Wallach, Wakaya Perfection ‘identified only Brogdon and Murphy‘.
Wakaya didn’t interview either woman, with their allegation relying on statements by unidentified individuals alleging they’d
observed Dr. Wallach, apparently intoxicated, enter hotel rooms occupied by women other than his wife.
Youngevity believe Dr. Wallach shouldn’t be compelled to answer Wakaya Perfection’s discovery interrogatories and have filed for a protective order.
Wakaya seeks to invade Dr. Wallach’s right to privacy and annoy, embarrass, harass, and oppress him.
Moreover, despite Wakaya’s counsel’s assurances to this Court on June 12that the inquiries and responses would be kept confidential, Wakaya’s distributors are already publishing word that their counsel intends to ask questions that will reveal salacious details of Dr. Wallach’s sex life.
It is thus clear that Wakaya distributors intend to use inquiries to damage Dr. Wallach’s reputation among distributors and within the direct selling community.
Wakaya argues that whether Dr. Wallach had sexual relations with Youngevity distributors is relevant to why people left Youngevity for Wakaya.
That argument fails because there is no evidence that Dr. Wallach had sexual relations with the people Wakaya claims.
In their response to the motion, Wakaya Perfection claim Dr. Wallach’s conduct is the reason some affiliates left Youngevity.
As explained in (Wakaya’s) Answer and Counterclaim, Youngevity’s culture has been plagued by a wide variety of wrongful conduct and misbehavior by the Youngevity Parties.
One aspect of that culture specifically relevant to this Motion includes the treatment of women by or affiliated with Doctor Joel Wallach, the founder and public face of Youngevity.
In particular, Dr. Wallach engaged in inappropriate relationships with numerous female Youngevity distributors, who would often receive preferential treatment from the Youngevity Parties at the expense of other Youngevity distributors.
He also harassed other female Youngevity distributors, who rejected his sexual advances and were not so rewarded.
This improper conduct played an important role in the ultimate departure of many Youngevity distributors, including the Wakaya Parties.
While provided evidence at this stage is thin, Wakaya Perfection’s attorneys have stated they ‘intend to introduce testimony concerning Dr. Wallach’s sexual history at trial‘.
That said, they do offer enough in their response filing to suggest they’re willing to go all the way.
Dr. Wallach’s accommodations at events have been referred to as rooms of adultery.
The Wakaya Parties are also aware that Dr. Wallach may be currently married to multiple different women, which is a crime directly and materially impacting Dr. Wallach’s character and reputation.
And most troubling are instances in which Dr. Wallach made persistent, unwelcome sexual advances towards female Youngevity distributors, including countless instances of unwanted comments, kissing, touching, and hotel-room visits and solicitations.
Youngevity employees have also shared similar concerns.
Several former Youngevity employees have detailed difficulties while scheduling events and coordinating Dr. Wallach’s demands.
For instance, Dr. Wallach would often desire to sit by one woman one evening of an event, another woman the next evening, and his wife at other times.
Employees were then tasked with keeping his favored women apart from one another while also fielding complaints from distributors about the preferential treatment given to some of Dr. Wallach’s favorites, such as Brandy Brogdon and Charmaine Murphy.
And employees were later tasked with damage control whenever Dr. Wallach’s behavior caused public scenes.
Certainly sounds like it’s good to be king over at Youngevity…
The Wakaya Parties’ narrowly tailored interrogatories regarding specific inappropriate behavior and relationships of Dr. Wallach are wholly proper—they are directly relevant to the issues in this case and were propounded to enable the Wakaya Parties to fully and adequately prepare their claims and defenses.
Curiously, rather than simply deny that such inappropriate behavior and relationships exist, the Youngevity Parties now seek a protective order.
The Youngevity Parties apparently endeavored to obtain declarations from two women who did not “have sex” with Dr. Wallach but thus far refuse to provide any response whatsoever from Dr. Wallach supporting that he has not, in fact, had inappropriate relationships with Youngevity distributors.
Those last points struck me too as I went over the filings. Neither Youngevity or Dr. Wallach have asserted he didn’t sleep with female Youngevity affiliates. Only the two women Wakaya Perfection have thus far named.
The Wakaya Parties should be permitted to ask Dr. Wallach and others during their depositions about his misbehavior and relationships with Youngevity distributors and, with respect to any distributors with whom he had an inappropriate relationship, whether the Youngevity Parties took any action to benefit or harm those or other Youngevity distributors.
Wakaya Perfection state that it isn’t so much who Dr. Wallach slept with that’s the issue, but rather the disadvantage his conduct created for Youngevity affiliates who didn’t sleep with him.
The issue is that Dr. Wallach’s actual and perceived inappropriate relationships—whether marriages, cohabitations, and other intimate physical relationships of any sort—with numerous female Youngevity distributors unfairly impacted many other distributors and deterred many from working with Youngevity altogether.
Dr. Wallach’s misbehavior—and the tolerance of his inappropriate actions by Youngevity’s senior management—cultivated an environment that eventually both distributors and employees sought to avoid.
This objectionable culture directly disproves Youngevity’s argument that its loss of distributors can be attributed to the Wakaya Parties.
A hearing to resolve the discovery dispute was held on June 16th.
Youngevity’s Motion for a Protective Order was “granted in part and denied in part”, however at the time of publication full details of the order were not yet available.
Stay tuned…
Update June 24th 2017 – The court order mostly granted Youngevity’s protective order. Wakaya however have been given permission to query Wallach on with respect to any specific affiliates who benefited he had an “intimate physical relationship with”.
hmmm so much bunga-bunga and bow-chika-wowwow from a 77 year old?
guess this means ‘youngevity’ works!! 🙂
I take it one or more of Youngevity’s products been working a little better than expected.
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempt removed)
^^ Cool. What does that have to do with Youngevity affiliates allegedly banging Dr. Wallach for financial gain?
Don’t want to get into gossip, here say, Just informing others that Dr. Wallach has contributed a cure for one of the most incurable diseases of all time. This is a huge step and I proved it works on pets as well. We all have the ability to make this a better world.
So nothing. Well I’m going to go ahead and mark it as spam then. Cheers for being honest.
uh, as long as y’all are not sending your pets to dr wallach’s room…
thank-you anjali
hey hey hey, no thanks required! 🙂
‘Dead Doctors Don’t Lie’ is still one of my favourite audios on nutritional health. The guy was a brilliant speaker back then, and appears he still has the talent to pull in a few groupies (lol).
Thank-you DRT, Dr. Wallach deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for helping children with Muscular Dystrophy get up and walk whom would normally have been confined to a wheelchair for life. This is huge what he has contributed to the world of natural medicine.
sexual harassment at the work place is not equivalent to being a ‘groupie’. if wallach was exchanging promotions for special favors it is a Crime and not just deranged ‘groupie’ behavior. by casually lumping these female affiliates as ‘groupies’ you’re putting the responsibility of their behavior solely upon them.
duh, there’s no nobel ‘peace’ prize for medicine.
haha, the only ‘peace’ prize wallach probably deserves is for keeping his wife away from the female affiliates he was hounding, thus maintaining the ‘peace’.
lol.
@ anjali
hmmm, ok sense of humour mismatch 😉
OTOH, anyone who believes women aren’t responsible for making a decision, free of duress, to exchange sex for commercial (or other) gain or favour, IMO is not paying attention 🙂
there is no doubt that the women who made these ‘deals’ with wallach are nothing but a more ‘genteel’ or ‘discreet’ variant of professional sex workers. this however does not absolve wallach for being a sexual predator who had the position and power to initiate such deals.
the victims here are the women who denied wallach’s approaches and paid a price by not getting deserved career growth, or left the company to get away from him. for such victims, the damage is not just financial, but the experience is horrifying and humiliating.
i suspect most women [including me] have faced some version of wallach’s predatory behavior at some point, and i have nothing but contempt for the wallach’es of this world.
they are vile disgusting toads and deserve public shaming and ridicule along with civil or criminal actions against them.
If the women want to press charges for improper conduct by Dr. Wallach, so be it. If Todd and Blake wanted to leave Youngevity for Wakaya for whatever reason, that’s their business.
But Wakaya taking to trial an adult male’s sex life with consenting females? Sounds like the 1500’s!
As has already been pointed out, Wallach allegedly committing adultery is not so much the issue here. It’s the disadvantage affiliates who didn’t sleep with Wallach were put in that’s the problem.
as far as i know those ladies are both in their late 70’s as well.
who knows what the relationship is but even if they are enjoying themselves, its not like how some people are portraying it.
It is so disappointing that so many people are so quick to believe accusations that are NOT backed by EVIDENCE.
Wakaya is just throwing anything they can think to see what sticks. The Wakaya group are dishonorable pirates raiding their former downlines, robbing and slandering one of the best companies around.
They have nothing.
It has always been best practice “to leave a company quietly, and enter a new one with a bang”. But not at Wakaya. They are only in this for themselves and nothing but thieves.
All these former Youngevity leaders were very loyal to Youngevity for years and built most of Youngevity.
It is well known in the industry that it is better to stay with one company and continue to build in loyalty and integrity a fact which all these former Youngevity leaders know very well.
No one was raided or stolen. People cannot be taken anywhere they do not want to go willingly and for reason.
It is in the Youngevity agreement that people can work for whomever they want in addition to being a Youngevity affiliate and rightly so if we are truly business owners and entrepreneurs.
Youngevity terminated their distributorships. One side claims that there was justification for termination the other claims no. But even if there was justification that still does not give the company the right to stop paying residual commissions for customers continuing to buy products from the company that took these distributors years to build.
For all the claims about going into business for yourself and being an independent entrepreneur, ultimately if an MLM company can terminate you at will, is that not the same as working for someone else?
Does an affiliate truly own their business in a MLM compensation plan?
If affiliates truly owned their affiliate positions they would be able and should be able to continue to earn residual commissions even if they were terminated.
I believe that a company has the right to stop working with any affiliate but everything the affiliate had built up to that time in residual income is rightly theirs and if the company keeps this it is theft.
All these former Youngevity affiliates should not have to take Youngevity to court to get what is rightfully theirs to begin with which is their residual commissions that took them years to build.
As long as the customers of these affiliates continue to buy products from Youngevity they are rightfully entitled to their residual commissions.
Youngevity is ethically and morally wrong for withholding commissions that belong to these affiliates not to mention legally this is nothing short of theft!
You all should be concerned with this point because if you are terminated tomorrow this will happen to you also.
I went to look to see if there is an association for MLM entrepreneurs or affiliates or distributors and what I found was something in name only but without any advocacy or any lawyers.
It is unbelievable to me that this most wonderful opportunity called network marketing in theory is basically just that since there is no unity or representation for the entire organization.
We need to unite and create our own society with lawyers and advocacy to make the necessary changes and to represent our best interests. Who of us would not support and be a member of such a society?
All these companies would be nowhere without the blood sweat and tears of strong entrepreneurs who have taken the market to a billion dollar industry, yet they hold and are in control of the cash register so to speak and hold all affiliates hostage to tyranny by being able to terminate them at will and withhold their residual commissions.
Would everyone please give this some thought?
To the best of my knowledge Youngevity isn’t owned by any of their affiliates.
“Own your own business” is an industry-wide misrepresentation of what it means to be a distributor/affiliate of an MLM company. You only “own your business” for as long as you’re with that company.
Kinda the same as a job, but don’t tell the Facebook “i don’t have a job” meme marketers that.
Don’t like it? Why did you agree to the terms and conditions when you signed up?
Again, I’m not arguing in favor or against – just pointing out the facts.
Dear Oz,
I was not aware that it is in the agreement that if the company terminates you they have the right to keep all the commissions! Even if they had this clause in the agreement there is something know as unconscionable in legal terms that would make such a clause worthless if the judge so ruled and I am certain that any judge would as has been the case in all these legal battles. But I am now getting sick and tired of network marketers not standing up for themselves and forming a union or society that will make the necessary changes in all the entire MLM industry.
As I have said before in prior comments. It is unbelievable to me that this most wonderful opportunity called network marketing in theory is basically just that since there is no unity or representation for the entire organization.
We need to unite and create our own society with lawyers and advocacy to make the necessary changes and to represent our best interests. Who of us would not support and be a member of such a society?
All these companies would be nowhere without the blood sweat and tears of strong entrepreneurs who have taken the market to a billions of dollars industry, yet they hold and are in control of the cash register so to speak and hold all affiliates hostage to tyranny and theft.
We need to be in control of our commissions which means that our commissions must be taken and divided at purchase this will prevent companies from being in control of our commissions. The amount of our commissions must go to us right away at purchase and be taken away from the price of the purchase. This much going to company and this much going to affiliate right at purchase.
This would secure our commissions right from the start as it should be.
Or the money going to a accounting firm to be handled and paid out properly.
Would everyone please give this some thought?
MLM commissions are tied to a position within the company (but remember, it’s totally your business).
No position? No commissions. That’s how pretty much every MLM company is structured.
How many times has that policy been challenged in court, would you say ?
Saying “I’m certain that any judge would” doesn’t make it so and the fact few, if any, IBOs have bothered to read their agreement in depth, doesn’t alter reality, either.
It’s pretty amazing that people fail to realize that 1099 income is supposed to be earned by what are called “Independent Contractors” under IRS regulations.
You are not a captive employee or agent of a company for tax purposes. Yet the same lawyers who would battle with the IRS that “Distributors” are not their employees, so they can AVOID TAXATION are the first to jump up and claim that the downline those 1099 distributors built are owned by the company and not the Independent Distributors.
How does that work in any other business?
So should every building contractor start classifying themselves as an MLM to avoid paying their sub-contractors and take the jobs they are working on other than theirs?
And the Distributors are too stupid to bring the IRS into the discussion and see if they agree with the company or the Distributor about that 1099 income the company got to pay without tax consequences?
Because if the IRS learns that these companies are really treating Distributors like employees and they have 200,000 “psuedo” employees (distributors) that’s a bunch of tax revenue and penalties for misclassification of employees.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either Distributors are Independent or they are working as employees for the company.
If MLM’S have some exception to the tax code then every business in America is crazy not to create an MLM pay plan within their company with a sales force to avoid paying taxes.
Joel Wallach nailing Char Murphy is AMAZING! They’re both pushing 80, but were in their 70’s at the time of allegations. That should be celebrated!
People going around having sex on the road in their 70’s is living like a rock star!
Kudos to Dr Wallach and all of the fine consenting women that he porked!