Well, I was on one of the first DIS exclusive ABDs with PW, John and Kevin, spending well over a week with them in London/Paris/
Disneyland Paris. Pete spent a LOT of the trip complaining about things, like the fact that "First Class" on the Eurostar train to Paris was not what he imagined First Class would be, and was therefore misrepresented to him/false advertising.
ABD spent a lot of the trip trying to appease him, like giving him upgraded rooms, etc. He was also not very nice to Walter, who I found very sweet, and I honestly thought Pete didn't deserve him. (I was sad when Walter disappeared from the Podcast seemingly without a word. D'oh!) I mostly listened to the podcast, and didn't watch it, as I would listen while taking walks at work. On the occasions that I did watch it, I found that I really disliked how Pete seemed to drool over the young men he brought in to work for him and it creeped me out, along with the fact that he was spending the night in hotel rooms with these guys. Not that I ever suspected just how bad it had gotten, I just thought it was inappropriate. At that point I decided I was done with the podcast. I'd really been "done" with it for a while, but that did me in. I saw him at a couple of DIS events (at WDW and a Podcast cruise) but didn't spend any time with him.
Then Pete summarily took away my Modship of the ABD Forum due to a ridiculous, trumped up accusation that someone had "tattled" on me with. Pete did not ask me for my side of the story or anything, but just took the Modship away and sent me an EXTREMELY nasty, long, accusatory PM telling me why he'd done it. I was so flabbergasted and upset, I really had nothing to say, so I didn't reply. So he sent me the same nasty message on Facebook, because he wanted to be sure I'd seen it. I told him he'd convicted me without a trial, and I had no desire to defend myself to him, and his only reply was "OK", and that's the last I saw or spoke to him. (And happily so). The hardest part was that I couldn't say anything about it on the ABD Forum, because I was afraid I'd be banned from the Boards, and lose out posting to the ABD Forum altogether. As it was, any questions posted about it were deleted. It was pretty disheartening.
So did I think he was sexually assaulting his employees? No. Did I think he was fostering a toxic workplace? Yes. So I stopped watching/listening. Was I surprised when all this came out? No. Shocked, yes, but surprised? No.
Yep. A ton of red flags. And it *is* heartbreaking.
Dustin *did* say he'd started therapy for all this just recently, and that he had a *LOT* to unpack with her. He expressed some serious sympathy for his therapist!
Sayhello