David Geithner, brother of ex-Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, is currently the chief financial officer of Condé Nast. This past weekend, he’d planned to go to Chicago—where he planned to meet a gay porn star and escort for “2-3 hours” at a cost of $2,500.
But this would not be a simple sexual transaction. Geithner, it seems, fucked with the wrong escort. The escort—who does not want to reveal his identity for professional reasons, but whom we will call Ryan—says he bailed on the date with the married (to a woman) father of three because Geithner declined to use his influence to help with a housing dispute.
The thwarted rendezvous began on July 4, when Geithner first contacted Ryan, whose phone number is available on a number of Chicago-area escort websites, via text message. Geithner said that he was going to be in Chicago exactly a week later, and would pay $2,500—plus airfare and hotel—for “2-3 hours” of Ryan’s services.
The next day, Geithner told Ryan that he would have FedEx deliver the first half of the money on the upcoming Tuesday to his home in Texas, presumably so that Geithner could establish that he was serious about meeting up in Chicago. Geithner also sent him a gleaming selfie and said, “My name is David, by the way.”
Inside the package, according to Ryan, was $1,250 in cash. He sent us a photo of the envelope he received.
We’ve redacted Ryan’s name and address, as well as the package’s tracking number, but in the upper lefthand corner you can see that the package was sent by a “Jon Gardner” from Orleans, Mass. There are no records of a “Jon Gardner” in Orleans—but the return address on the envelope, which we have also redacted, instead matches a home that has been in the Geithner family for years. Records show that in 2005, Deborah, the patriarch of the Geithner family, turned the house over to David and his siblings, Timothy, Sarah, and Jonathan. When we called the number Ryan was texting, the person who answered identified himself as David Geithner.
The two continued texting over the weekend. Ryan told Geithner that he looked like Tom Cruise. He told Geithner that he was listening to Elton John at the gym, and Geithner responded by saying he enjoyed everything from Top 40 to Dire Straits to Latin music. Ryan sent him a photo of his penis, to which Geithner responded, “You are killing me.”
But before they could meet, things got weird. At some point, Ryan searched for his new friend’s phone number on Facebook and discovered that the “David” he was talking to was David Geithner, an important and politically connected figure. And Ryan, as it happened, needed some legal help.
The day before the two were supposed to meet in Chicago, Ryan asked Geithner if he could send him something by email. Geithner said that he could, but that he would rather not give Ryan his email address because it contained his last name, which he didn’t want to tell him. Ryan told Geithner to create a burner account, and Geithner complied.
This is where things get a little hairy. The documents that Ryan sent Geithner regarded an ongoing discrimination lawsuit between Ryan and his landlord. In 2013, Ryan was evicted from his luxury apartment building in Texas. He says it was because the company that owns the building discovered he was a gay porn star, but in legal documents his attorney stated that Ryan was kicked out for owning an emotional assistance dog to help ease his PTSD, which was against the building’s rules.
On April 21, 2014, the United States Department of Housing and Development (HUD) issued a “determination of no reasonable cause” regarding Ryan’s discrimination claim. The decision was appealed by his attorney to no avail, and so Ryan began investigating other methods to reverse the ruling, including contacting the FBI and, he says, officials in the Obama administration.
He also sought help from his local senator, Ted Cruz. On April 7 of this year, Cruz’s office sent Ryan a letter telling him that they had “initiated an inquiry” with HUD on Ryan’s behalf. On May 6, Ryan received another letter from Cruz’s office, stating that HUD had made a “final determination” on his case in May 2014, at which point HUD closed his case. Enclosed was a letter from a HUD field office director, stating that HUD could not initiate any further investigation into Ryan’s case unless he provided “new and relevant information.” Ryan felt this response was insufficient, and that several government agencies had sided with his landlord in discriminating against him because of his sexuality. (Cruz’s office has continued to stay in touch with Ryan, he tells us. He says that an employee of Cruz’s called him this afternoon to say that the senator had personally called the HUD director on his behalf. It seems as if Cruz, in the midst of his Presidential campaign, sees an opportunity to help a veteran with PTSD who has been crushed by Washington bureaucracy.)
During their correspondence, according to Ryan, Geithner mentioned to him that he was a CFO. Thanks to a Facebook search of the phone number sending him the texts, Ryan was able to piece together Geithner’s identity—and specifically, that his brother was once a high-level official within the Obama administration. Ryan, whose Facebook page contains a number of videos and photographs advocating for a variety of conspiracy theories, felt Geithner might be able to use his influence to overturn HUD’s decision.
Geithner, though, didn’t know Ryan’s plan when he opened the email the day before the two were set to meet. Geithner—to his credit—read at least some of the documents, though he didn’t quite understand what Ryan was getting at.
But right as Ryan opened the door, he closed it. In a subsequent message, he revealed to Geithner that he had “figured out who you was”:
The next time Geithner texted Ryan, it was to regretfully cancel their hook up.
Why Geithner bailed on Ryan while on the runway in New York is open for speculation. It’s possible that his plane was indeed delayed. Or, of course, he could have gotten spooked by an escort with an agenda who had discovered exactly who he was. After all, Geithner had booked Ryan until midnight or 1 a.m.—one figures it would require an excruciating delay to get in that late. Plus, his escort, booked at a four-star hotel, probably wouldn’t have minded waiting around.
Alas, Ryan didn’t go to Chicago, either. The way he tells it, he decided to bail on his flight after deciding that Geithner didn’t care enough about his personal plight. On that Saturday afternoon, Ryan texted Geithner: “I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.” Ryan says that he has no vendetta against Geithner specifically—instead, he just wants to publicize his case against HUD.
This afternoon, Ryan reached out to Geithner, because he felt Geithner deserved to know that he had gone to the press. He didn’t receive a response until after I contacted Geithner for a statement, at which point Geithner texted Ryan and asked him to call immediately.
Later, Ryan tells me, Geithner promised him that if he could get Gawker to kill the story, Geithner would bring his HUD complaint to President Obama.
After being informed of this story, Geithner provided the following statement to Gawker:
I don’t know who this individual is. This is a shakedown. I have never had a text exchange with this individual. He clearly has an ulterior motive that has nothing to do with me.
Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.