Max Bateman (image via Twitter)
A woman said earlier this week that Max Bateman, former manager of the San Francisco Shock of the forthcoming Overwatch League, sexually assaulted her in September after a drink he gave her made her feel dizzy and confused, and later had her “in and out of consciousness”.
Fourteen hours after the woman posted about what happened on Twitter, using the handle “Krystlin,” the Shock fired Bateman.
Shock owner — and Sacramento Kings minority owner — Andy Miller said yesterday that Bateman was fired under NRG Esports’s zero-tolerance policy. (As of publication time, NRG Esports had not provided details about the policy.)
A spokesperson for NRG referred back to Miller’s statement and otherwise declined to comment. Bateman, who did not reply to multiple requests for comment, tweeted last night that he will be making a statement today.
He also tweeted “Not 100% true”at Krystlin and his former employers.
Krystlin wrote Sunday night on TwitLonger that, on Sept. 30, she and Bateman were out drinking with some players of the then-NRG Overwatch team. The following is a portion of her account in which she says she was assaulted:
I had a normal amount of drinks and started to feel sick which wasn’t normal. The last one I had was made by Max. I started to feel dizzy, confused, and started to dry-heave.
That’s when Max suggested we should just leave so we Ubered back to Max’s place to get my house keys. He was supposed to drive me home after I had gotten my keys. Next thing I remember is falling asleep on Max’s couch and woke up because I was coughing up saliva/blood. I went into his room to lay down.
He was in there playing games on his computer and left to go clean up the couch. After he was finished he came back into the room and played games for a couple more hours. At this point I was in and out of consciousness. I remember Max laying next to me but didn’t think anything of it because we’ve shared a bed in the past and nothing’s happened.
That’s when he sexually assaulted me. In my mind I knew what was happening wasn’t right but I couldn’t move.
(A host at a Las Vegas nightclub tweeted at Krystlin that night, saying that she was throwing up blood.)
Five days later, Krystlin says, she called Las Vegas police. Compete reached out Monday and Tuesday to the Las Vegas police, who have not yet provided a copy of any police reports, saying that they need to confirm with detectives whether the case is open or closed before providing any reports.
In her Twitlonger post, Krystlin said that Las Vegas police didn’t move forward with the case:
I filed a police report after but I was told there wasn’t enough proof/evidence. When Max was called in to give a statement he was a no-show to the detective and texted me asking if we could solve this between us.
The documents provided by Krystlin do not show what happened next with the police investigation; the Las Vegas police have yet to comment to Compete on the status of the case.
Krystlin provided Compete with her own copy of the police reports she had, which included a two-page written statement she gave and a short, narrative blurb written by an officer. The voluntary statement, dated Oct. 6, included a more detailed account from Krystlin of what she says happened:
My last drink was made by Max at the table… At this point I felt dizzy, confused. So I drink water and started to dry heave. Max then said we should go… Next thing I remembered is falling asleep on Max’s couch. I woke up because I was coughing up saliva and red liquid (blood?). So I went to his room to lay down…
I was in and out of consciousness. I felt I could not move my body. Max then layed next to me he then processed to sexual assault me. I know in my mind this was not OK.
I had no power over my body to stop him. Verbally I could not talk. At this point I just layed there with no knowledge of time, when I woke I wasn’t sure if this really happened. I then told him to take me home at about 9am.
I was very confused. I arrived home it was a blur. I finally went over the situation in my head many times over and over and realised he did sexually assault me without my permission.”
The final page of the police report summarises what Krystlin told Las Vegas police and includes more details. Her full name has been omitted at her request.
Bateman told her to lay on his bed. After a few hours, [Krystlin] said Bateman laid in the bed with her and started to touch her chest and groin area underneath her clothes. [She] says she was in and out of consciousness and is not sure if there was penetration involved … [She] said when she got home there was vaginal discharge (blood).
Krystlin also told the police that she went to her OB/GYN on Oct. 5 to get examined and have blood work done.
Krystlin also posted screenshots Sunday of text messages that she says are between her and Bateman:
Another series of text messages she posted showed the following response, referencing a call from a detective.
This post will be updated if Bateman issues a statement or if Las Vegas police respond to our request.
Comments
19 responses to “Overwatch Team Fires Manager After Woman Says He Sexually Assaulted Her”
Whooo boy
So if said Eric van Allen touched me inappropriately, is he now worthy of being sacked simply because of an accusation?
I get this sexual assault stuff is abhorrent and wrong, with anyone caught should be penalised to the nth degree.
But the knee jerk firing for an accusation is just wrong.
Kevin spacey is being labeled as a pedo rapist.
He hasn’t been accused or charged of having sex with minors or even raping anyone. But thats what’s being reported.
What happened to courts of law and due justice?
Well, accept my apologies. The text messages just loaded in the images.
Burn the dude.
Yep, I was erring on the side of skepticism until I saw the texts….Although that said they’re pretty easy to fake.
Why does the screen shot cut off his name in one of the photos but not the other?
i would expect if they were faked it would be pretty easy to prove, cell tower logs etc since a police report has been filed.
Can’t comprehend at what point he thought this was Okay?
My story has nothing to do with what happened in Bateman’s case, but when I was in university a girl and I, friends, were hanging out in her room, drinking, and she drank too much and got pretty out of it. She was (literally) begging for it, but I said no. Five minutes later she started throwing up, then passed out. Later on she claimed she couldn’t even remember that she’d been trying to get me to have sex with her. I thought, lucky I said no!
As I said, nothing to do with this article, but you can see how a snap decision could have brought me undone had I decided wrongly.
@jbp – care to elaborate why allowing the public to prosecute is better than the courts? Or are you just comfortable hiding behind your social justice downvote?
Because I work in entertainment and this shit is rife. No one will ever be found guilty because there’s never anything beyond two people making statements.
Also how is your opinion of Spacey travelling now?
Also you behave like public backlash is equivalent to a jail sentence. How many people have been tried and jailed by the SJW female conspiracy? Companies apply policy on a balance of probability and reputational basis. You’re acting like I’ve said that these people should go to jail based on twitter or something.
You also don’t address the power dynamics in these situations, don’t acknowledge the history of secondary victimization via the justice system, ignore that the burden of proof in a two way argument is virtually impossible to meet and still rest on your laurels saying “send it to court”. These cases very likely won’t beat the burden of proof because there is always very little, even in very recent cases of sexual assault/harassment. This means we can also assume that historical complaints which reach a court would be very difficult to bring a strong case for. This is also assuming that you can get away with tolling statutes of limitations, which means your initial case needs to be even more airtight than usual. I assume you know all this and are just using “send it to court” as a shield against having to accept that power when wielded by bad people enables them to more freely engage in behaviour that you or I would be instantly called on or it’s an effort to cast shade on the veracity of claims brought by these aggrieved people.
Ultimately though (I work in IR for entertainment businesses/industry groups) if a business wants to apply their policy and ethical standards to an individual based on internal investigation and reputational damage, that’s up to them. If there is public outcry over the alleged behavior of an individual contractor, they have no right to the status quo, particularly as an individual that is selling themselves on contract such as actors and comedians. An employee who is engaged on the power of their public profile can be immediately terminated given the severity and weighed veracity of these kinds of complaints. In the same way that a company applies their ethics and weighs it on internal review or investigation, I do the same when these things crop up.
Whether you think this is fair or not is up to you. I’d prefer to hear something interesting and thoughtful than repeats of posts about courts that don’t take into contemplation what that actually means.
Cheers. That was worth the read.
And youre right, the opinion is lesser, but I am still of the mind that the prosecution belongs in the courts.
If by chance this all did turn out to be a money grab, the damage is done and there is no coming back.
We have laws and police for a reason.
Yeah and I wish they were effective at this stuff but you get cops that don’t care/are not interested in pursuing powerful people or courts that can’t handle wishy washy cases (they’re never cut and dried) so you need this pressurised environment. Basically all the called out celebs so far have a lot to answer for. CK finally reached the break point after four years and fessed up, Spacey is copping more and more of it.
It’s fucked because I like these guys but I’m going to take these complaints really seriously because it’s ugly for the complainant to have to out themselves as a victim. If this dissolves the entrenchment of the behaviour and the protection of the offenders, I do think courts will be able to act in the interest of everyone involved, they’re just kind of useless right now and people need to use whatever avenues they’ve got.
Looks pretty dodgy, but what happened to being suspended without pay while the incident is investigated?
The only reason I can think of is that Bateman admitted to his employer that there was SOME truth to the accusation and therefore the employer acted due to zero tolerance policy.
Bit hard to know without knowing the full story.
Everybody’s sexually assaulting everybody these days
Looks like his statement is up – Looks like there might be editing on those texts – I hope if the allegations are false they reverse the firing
I always wonder what goes on in the heads of the dudes who read an article like this and immediately hit REPLY and hammer out some variation of ‘Look, I’m just going to cast gentle doubt on her story here’.
That’s far from the first thing on my mind when I see an allegation of sexual assault.
Can any of you doing that here explain your way of thinking? What takes you from ‘Hmm, it’s a lovely Thursday morning, just having breakfast, WELL OF THE MILLIONS OF CONVERSATIONS I COULD PARTAKE IN ON THE INTERNET I AM GOING TO DROP INTO THIS ONE AND CAST DOUBT ON THE WOMAN BUT NOT IN AN EGREGIOUS WAY GOSH NO US DUDES NEED TO STICK TOGETHER’
There’s dozens of other things on this site alone you could engage in and infinite numbers across the internet but for *some* reason, a dude being accused of sexual assault stirs you into a very specific, predictable course of action.
Happens every time, I am genuinely curious what part of this story affects you on a personal level as opposed to, you know, the millions of rapes, murders, tortures, and unjust imprisonments that happen all around the world and are easily visible in your online feed.
For example, some of you might claim your motivation is the pure, spiritual need to defend the philosophical principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. But I will wager a crisp $50 that your need to do that is only something that is expressed in this way.
Unless of course, if you’re also spending your day protesting Australia’s imprisonment of innocent men, women, and children in offshore rape camps, and constructing banners highlighting the millions of people unjustly imprisoned due to authoritarian regimes the world over, in which case good on you.
But if you’re not, what’s really triggering you?
*tumbleweeds*
Every single time it’s basically “how do I find a way to gently allude to my instinctive distrust of the complainant without obviously being a misogynist.”
I forgot that people aren’t allowed to doubt accusers anymore… Listen and believe without ever questioning anything, right?
I tend not to believe either side is innocent/guilty of anything until there’s good reason to, like evidence. After that I’m all for burning the offender at the stake.
The fucked thing is that in a lot of cases (unlike this one as it would thankfully appear) there is simply no evidence and it is just a he said/she said shitshow…. So it becomes plainly impossible to know for sure who is telling the truth.
Without damn good reason on hand, automatically believing every accuser is telling the truth and every alleged offender is lying is just plainly idiotic.