Mr. Rabois (Photo: Twitter)

Earlier today, news broke that Square's COO, Keith Rabois, had left the company. It was a strangely-timed departure, considering Square recently raised $200 million in a Series D. Now, the Wall Street Journal has broken the news that Mr. Rabois is embroiled in a sexual harassment claim from a fellow Square employee, and resigned so that the allegations would “not cause a distraction for the company.”

Steven Berger, the New York attorney representing the unnamed employee, said that Square had failed to take appropriate actions after the employee claimed he was being sexually harassed. Mr. Rabois told the Journal, "I'm completely confident that all the facts will come out and I will be vindicated."

In a post published to his Tumblr, Mr. Rabois offered his version of events. According to the post, he met the unnamed employee through a mutual friend, and their friendship quickly blossomed into a romance. Mr. Rabois says the employee began working at Square several months after they began dating, following his recommendation to hire.

Writes Mr. Rabois:

Last week, a New York-based attorney threatened Square and myself with a lawsuit. I am told this lawsuit would allege that the relationship was not consensual, and would go on to accuse me of some pretty horrible things. I was told that only a payment of millions of dollars will make this go away, and that my career, my reputation, and my livelihood will be threatened if Square and I don’t pay up.

I realize that continuing any physical relationship after he began working at Square was poor judgment on my part. But let me be unequivocal with the facts: (1) The relationship was welcome. (2) Square did not know of the relationship before a lawsuit was threatened; it came as a complete surprise to the company. (3) He never received nor was denied any reward or benefits based on our relationship. And (4), I did not do the horrendous things I am told I may be accused of. While I have certainly made mistakes, this threat feels like a shakedown, and I will defend myself to the full extent of the law.

Mr. Rabois is a member of the storied PayPal mafia, having worked at both PayPal and LinkedIn prior to Square. Mr. Rabois' active Twitter account yesterday betrayed no signs that anything was amiss. He thanking several followers for congratulating him on moving on from Square.

"I deeply regret that I let my personal and professional lives to become intertwined," Mr. Rabois wrote on his Tumblr. "I apologize to my colleagues and friends (at Square and elsewhere) who I’ve let down, and who will bear the brunt of some of the unnecessary, negative attention this situation will likely bring."

Update (5:26 p.m.): Gawker's Adrian Chen points out on Twitter that as a first-year law student at Stanford in the early-1990s, Mr. Rabois was involved in an incident in which Mr. Rabois and two other students "shouted homophobic slurs in the direction of a lecturer's home." A New Yorker profile on PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who met Mr. Rabois at Stanford, described the incident as a law student's attempt to test the limits of the First Amendment.

(Photo: Weblo)

A woman in Las Vegas has filed a lawsuit against online dating service Match.com after a man she had gone on a date with through the service brutally attacked her in 2010. Mary Kay Beckman is seeking $10 million in damages after her match, Wade Ridley, hid in her garage and then stabbed her ten times before kicking her in the head. Ms. Beckman has had to have several corrective surgeries following the attack.

Soon after assaulting her, Mr. Ridley was accused of murdering another woman. He was being held as a murder suspect before he committed suicide in jail.

Like other online dating sites, Match.com does not do crimininal background checks on its users, although it does check members agains the sexual offender registry. However, Mr. Ridley did not have a criminal record at the time he was on the service.

The lawsuit hinges on the argument that online dating is inherently unsafe, and that Match.com should come with a warning label notifying users of the potential dangers of meeting strangers online. Ms. Beckman is asking for a disclaimer to be appended to the site. Match.com says it already provides tips for safe online dating on its website.

“The basis of the lawsuit is the advertising that is utilized by Match.com, lulling women and men into a false sense of security,” Ms. Beckman's attorney, Marc Saggese. told KLAS-TV. Match.com is “absolutely not safe," he added.

The suit raises some pointed questions about the legal protections of websites and just how culpable they are for the actions of their members. Suddenly sweetheart scams seem so innocuous.

We've reached out to Match.com for a statement and will update when we hear back.

Update:

Match.com provided Betabeat with the following statement:

"What happened to Mary Kay Beckman is horrible, but this lawsuit is absurd. The many millions of people who have found love onMatch.com and other online dating sites know how fulfilling it is. And while that doesn't make what happened in this case any less awful, this is about a sick, twisted individual with no prior criminal record, not an entire community of men and women looking to meet each other."