The co-founder of luxury concierge group Quintessentially is battling accusations of rape and financial misconduct in a series of lawsuits in California.
Allegations against Aaron Simpson range from sexual assault and sex trafficking to money laundering and tax evasion, court filings show, in cases that lawyers for the director of the UK concierge group say are “factually and legally meritless” or driven by a desire to extort him.
Two women accuse Simpson of rape in civil cases for “sexual battery”. One of them is among three people who are separately suing Simpson, his co-founders and a number of Quintessentially entities for wrongful dismissal, alleging they were fired after raising concerns about financial impropriety. Quintessentially denies ever having employed them.
Simpson, a former film producer, co-founded Quintessentially around the turn of the millennium with Paul Drummond and Sir Ben Elliot, a nephew of Queen Camilla and former co-chair of the Conservative Party. The company, which has offices in London, New York, Dubai and Los Angeles, helps fulfil the “every desire” of its customers, from access to private events and rare art to sold-out Taylor Swift concerts.
All five lawsuits were filed by California-based K&L Law Group. One of the cases was first filed in 2019 and has faced procedural delays, while the others were launched last August and have not been previously reported.
“It is indefensible that unproven, abusive pleadings — unsupported by any evidence or finding of wrongdoing — are amplified in the public domain,” Simpson told the FT.
Quintessentially UK said the claims were completely false, that it expected them to be dismissed by US courts, that it would not pay the claimant “any sum”, and that “it is a manifest travesty and very wrong that concocted claims such as these get any public airing whatsoever”.
In the latest lawsuit, an anonymous woman accuses Simpson of “violent rape” at a party in Los Angeles. She claims in court filings that Quintessentially UK, the group’s parent entity, facilitated the alleged rape by paying for her plane tickets to attend the party and by renting the property in which it was held, and that the incident amounted to sex trafficking under federal law.
While neither Simpson nor Quintessentially UK has yet filed a defence on the substance of the woman’s allegations, the company has sought to have the case against it dismissed on procedural and jurisdictional grounds.
Simpson has not been formally notified of the four most recent cases, court filings show.
In an earlier lawsuit, filed in 2019 and updated in 2023, Simpson is accused of sexual assault by a woman who claims to have met him “through an adult webcam internet site” before becoming an employee of the Quintessentially group, and with whom he had an extramarital affair.
The woman, whom the FT has chosen not to name, alleges in her claim that Simpson became physically and mentally abusive after their relationship soured, coerced her into performing in pornographic videos, repeatedly sexually assaulted her and restricted her movements. In a later filing for the same case, she accuses Simpson of multiple rapes.
Her filings also allege that Simpson and his wife Leanne claimed he was an agent for the UK’s foreign intelligence agency MI6 as they sought to discourage her from speaking out in what she claims was a campaign of harassment and threats.
The Quintessentially group is accused of facilitating the alleged assaults by arranging for her to travel to meet Simpson for what she thought would be business meetings.
Simpson and his wife have denied all the accusations. His lawyers claimed in a filing last year that he had been in “a consensual romantic relationship” with the woman, and have challenged the “speculative” lawsuit both on substantive and procedural grounds.
His lawyers said in a response filed in 2023 that the case stemmed from “a personal vendetta attempting to extort Aaron and Leanne”, and have filed a complaint alleging that the former lover failed to repay a €900,000 loan from Simpson.
A response from Leanne Simpson said her inclusion in the woman’s case was “frivolous” and intended only to “harass, embarrass and extort a settlement”.
In the three separate wrongful dismissal cases, Simpson and some other senior Quintessentially UK figures, as well as several people connected to the group, also face allegations of tax evasion and money laundering.
Simpson’s former lover and two other people who say they were employed by the group, Michael and Christopher Bui, claim to have been fired in “retaliation” for blowing the whistle on misconduct.
Quintessentially denies having employed them.
The Bui brothers and the woman allege that senior figures in the Quintessentially group, including Simpson, used more than a dozen businesses registered at the same London address as Quintessentially UK to launder money or evade tax.
They claim the individuals regularly arranged for money to be transferred between bank accounts to “conceal” the origin of “illicitly gained monies”.
In particular, according to their court filings, money was transferred to and from a company called Peachy Teddy.
Peachy was incorporated in 2015, with its registered office at the same London address as Quintessentially UK, according to corporate filings that name the former lover and Michael Bui as then directors.
The lawsuits claim some senior Quintessentially UK figures had intentionally misrepresented the purpose of investments into Peachy in order to qualify for tax relief.
The filings additionally name Le Besoin — an escort website that the FT in 2020 revealed had also been registered to the same address as Quintessentially UK — as among the companies allegedly used as money-laundering vehicles.
Simpson and Elliot are alleged to have had control of some of the different entities’ bank accounts. Simpson’s former lover and the Bui brothers were asked to carry out transactions, open bank accounts and sign corporate documents in their own names for the purposes of money laundering or tax evasion, according to the contested claims.
The disputed employment case filings also describe a “misogynistic, bigoted and corrupt culture” within the Quintessentially group, in which it is alleged that clients and associates were described with racially offensive slurs.
In a response filed in December regarding the three lawsuits, the Quintessentially group’s lawyers argue that the cases are “factually and legally meritless”.
They say the relevant Quintessentially entities deny being aware of harassment, discrimination or wrongful termination against the three complainants, who they say were never employees of the group. They also argue that the allegations were too far in the past to be considered in court, and that the complaints had “literally no meaningful details”.
Elliot declined to comment. Drummond denied the allegations.
www.ft.com
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