Former Keller Williams Realty Chief Executive Officer John Davis says the recantation of false sexual misconduct allegations against him by a Keller Williams franchise owner strengthens his racketeering, antitrust and embezzlement case against the residential real estate giant, its founder, its former president and other executives – who knew the allegations were fabricated and weaponized them against Davis.
Franchisee Inga Dow made false sexual harassment claims against Davis as part of her own lawsuit against Keller Williams, her attempt to gain financial leverage in her own dealings with the company. She subsequently received an undisclosed settlement from Keller Williams, and after being confronted with evidence that she fabricated her claims against Davis, Dow dropped her malicious allegations against Davis and issued an apology.
“In the lawsuit, I made statements about Mr. Davis that wrongly accused him of misconduct including harassment, sexual assault, and rape,” Dow said in her affidavit, filed in late November. “I fully retract these statements and apologize to Mr. Davis.”
Davis is suing Keller Williams Realty, founder Gary Keller, ex-Keller Williams president Josh Team, and multiple co-defendants in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, accusing them of inflating key financial metrics including company sales and profits to convince individuals to purchase Keller Williams franchises, known as regions and market centers. It also alleges Gary Keller masterminded an “illegal and criminal-minded scheme,” where he and the other defendants misrepresented franchise agreements, forced franchisees to pay for services through companies that Keller owns or invests in, and retaliated against franchisees that don’t agree to the scheme – and similar activity continues to this day … Investors and franchisees are seeing the facts that we’ve laid out in our lawsuit and saying, ‘This also has happened to me,’” said Davis’s lawyer Andrew Miltenberg, a partner at Nesenoff & Miltenberg. “Gary Keller’s trying to capture all the franchises by locking owners into deals they can’t get out of and then either seizing these independently operated businesses or buying them back at a steep discount so he can control them like they were part of one big company, contrary to the franchise model.”