Billionaire investor who helped launch Google is accused of ‘divorce terrorism’ in bitter break-up

A billionaire Google founder set up a website to badmouth his estranged wife after dumping her by text and inflicted ‘domestic terrorism’ on her, a court is set to hear.

The bitter breakup happened in 2014, when tech genius Scott Hassan – who wrote much of the initial code for Google – texted Allison Huynh, his wife of 13 years, to say he wanted a divorce. The pair has for the past seven years been ensnared in a nasty divorce battle revolving around how to split billions of dollars in assets.

Huynh, a Vietnam immigrant who attended Stanford on a full scholarship, is seeking half of the couple’s assets Her lawyer, Pierce O’Donnell, told DailyMail.com that it was in 2018 valued at $1.8 billion, including investments in technology companies and real estate.

‘In my experience it’s the longest running court case in California history,’ said O’Donnell, who has been practicing for 50 years. ‘It’s unusually fraught and contentious, because Scott is taking the position in court that his wife of 13 years – with three children, who gave up her life, who loved him, trusted him and helped him – is entitled to nothing.’

Hassan did not respond to the DailyMail.com’s request for comment, but told the New York Post that claims he wanted to leave her penniless were ‘not accurate’.

Monday’s trial in Santa Clara County, California, will offer the public with an intimate look into the split, including details of a ‘divorce terrorism,’ campaign Hassan launched against his 46-year-old ex, which culminated with threats to ‘bury her’ and make sure she ‘gets nothing,’ The New York Times reported.

The billionaire bachelor intentionally prolonged court proceedings, according to his jilted ex.

Hassan also launched a revenge website, AllisonHuynh.com, in February which he used to share court documents from three unflattering lawsuits involving his ex, O’Donnell said.

Huynh, herself a Stanford grad and senior fellow at the university’s robotics lab, became aware of the website Aug. 5. She reported it to her lawyers, but when their tech department couldn’t definitively determine who created it, she used her own tech savvy to crack the code.

‘She’s the one who figured out it was Scott,’ her lawyer, Pierce O’Donnell, told DailyMail.com. ‘They call him the computer genius of Silicon Valley. He didn’t count on his wife – his wife – figuring him out. So this super genius who co-founded Google… was outed by his wife who’s got her own computer chops. For me, it’s a delicious story, and it’s true.’

The website’s banner featured a photo of Huynh, and while much of the content was complimentary, it also contained documents related to previous lawsuits she was involved in, including a sexual harassment case she won.

Hassan was ordered by a judge Friday to release all records of the website, which Huynh’s lawyer say was used to spread ‘decades-old accusations made against her by a boss who responded to Allison’s claim that he sexually harassed her by victim blaming her in his cross-complaint.’

Huynh’s biggest concerns were that their Internet-savvy teenage children would discover the site, her lawyers said.

‘As [Hassan] knows, the parties’ children are active online and were almost certain to come across the site, review the decades-old pleadings and be left with the impression that their mother is not who they thought she was—that she has some hidden, sullied past life,’ the law firm representing Huynh wrote in a court petition to have the site removed.

‘In fact, contrary to Scott’s counsel’s shameless claim that Allison told the three children about the imposter site—she did not—one of Allison’s children sadly learned about it from Scott and questioned her mother about the ‘bad stuff’ about her on the site. This is precisely what Allison feared—that the parties’ children would be emotionally scarred by their father’s attack on their mother and by the contents of the site, which would drag them deeper into their parents’ conflict, and cause them to be alienated from one or both of their parents.’

Although he doesn’t have the same name recognition as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, Hassan played an indispensable role in the creation of Google, having written a significant portion of the code used to run the search engine while working as a research assistant at Stanford University.

When Google launched in 1998, Hassan bought 160,000 shares for $800, The New York Times reported. Three years later, in 2001, he married Huynh in Las Vegas following a yearlong courtship. There was no prenup.

The New York Times estimates Hassan’s Google shares would today be worth more than $13billion. He also helped found eGroups, which was sold to Yahoo for $432million in stock, according to the Times.

There was some bickering over who supported who in the early years of their marriage, with Huynh claiming she paid many of the bills during a time when Hassan was $60,000 in debt, the Times reported.

Hassan denied those claims, saying he had by that point become financially secure.

After Google went public in 2004, bringing the value of Hassan’s stocks to more than $200million, the investor tried to strike a post-nuptial agreement, The Times reported. Huynh reportedly refused his offer of $20million in Google stock and to split the three properties they shared.

 They separated in 2015, and have been quarrelling in court for the past seven years.

The upcoming trial is expected to last four weeks.

‘Allison wants to get on with her life, but she wasn’t going to just capitulate,’ O’Donnell said, adding the ‘divorce terrorism’ label ‘is one that I agree with. He scorched her with litigation, and had absolutely no willingness to settle for anything remotely reasonable.’