The Aquaman actress hired David Shane, 49, last month to help push a picture of Johnny Depp as an alcohol-bingeing abuser who victimized Heard – but the PR guru himself has a checkered past of HR investigations, alcohol-related crimes and sexual impropriety allegations.
His alleged transgressions are so well-known in PR circles that he is nicknamed 'Hurricane Shane' and 'the walking #MeToo case of the PR world,' industry insiders claim.
According to his former colleagues, who spoke to DailyMail.com anonymously for fear of reprisals from the 'litigious' Shane, he was investigated by HR departments at both Hewlett-Packard and Juniper, where he worked as vice president of communications from 2008 to 2010 and 2010 to 2012 respectively.
The ex-colleagues said both cases involved claims of sexual harassment, and both were followed by Shane leaving the companies, although it is not clear whether his departure was because of the investigations, and Shane denied that any complaints had been filed against him.
Shane’s lawyer told DailyMail.com the allegations were ‘false’ and a distraction from the Depp-Heard defamation case.
He had two DUI charges in 2010 and 2012.
The alcohol-related crimes could prove embarrassing for the spin doctor, who has previously highlighted Johnny Depp's profligate spending on wine – and has been hired by Heard to help support her claims of Depp's alcohol-fueled abuse against her.
A former model claimed that Shane tried to force her to give him oral sex after she met him on Raya, a dating app for the rich, famous and well-connected.
Hollie Doker, 32, said that in late 2018 Shane took her on two dates, first to Mr Chow and then to Nobu Sushi in Hollywood, and arranged a driver to pick her up by private limo both times.
After the second date they went back to his West Hollywood condo, she said.
‘He started getting really aggressive, like “come to my bedroom, let’s have sex.” I’m like “no”. I even lied to him and told him I was on my period because I just felt so uncomfortable,’ Doker said.
‘He said “I took you on these amazing dates to these really great restaurants,” insinuating that I owed it to him.
‘At that point he started getting super aggressive and he pushed my head down, towards that [his crotch]. I told him no and I got up. He got angry and was like “I’ll call you a f***ing Uber.’
Doker, who now works in social media marketing, said she complained to Raya after the experience and that thecompany deleted Shane’s account.
Raya said it does not comment on specific cases, but added that ‘in the rare instances we receive a report regarding predatory, harassing, violative, or otherwise inappropriate behavior by a member, we take it very seriously and have a zero tolerance policy.
Shane’s lawyer, Rebecca Kaufman, said her client ‘adamantly denies Hollie Doker’s allegation, which dramatically conflicts with Ms. Doker’s original account that she posted over three years ago.’
Kaufman was referring to a December 2018 post Doker wrote in a private Facebook group of LA women shortly after the incident, warning them about his alleged behavior.
Two former colleagues told DailyMail.com that in 2012 Shane left his job as vice president of communications at Silicon Valley tech firm Juniper following a slew of complaints.
In one of the incidents, Shane allegedly used company funds to pay women to 'improve the gender balance' and 'create a club feel' at a 2011 conference event in Hong Kong attended by Al Gore.
'He thought it was too heavily male, and so added some females into the mix,' one former Juniper staffer said. 'It was wildly inappropriate.
He thought there needed to be women there to sort of create a festive mood with all the guys in the room. It was kind of to give it a more club feeling.
'They were dressed nicely, but provocatively. There were several Australians, a couple of Brits. They were working the room for sure,' the source said.
The source said the alleged incident was not the only one that led to complaints against Shane at the company.
'He was just one of those people who I think didn't understand that consequences or rules applied to him sometimes,' the ex-staffer said.
There were a lot of questionable things that he did that made people uncomfortable.
Shane was allegedly accused of sexual harassment by his team members. '[It was] inappropriate behavior with young members of the comms function. Comms teams are generally younger women,' the source said.
Another Juniper source said the alleged sexual harassment complaints involved him 'pushing himself' on young women with whom he worked.
'He would cozy up to, and try to separate from the pack, a very young, vulnerable, member of the external PR firm,' Shane's former colleague said.
The way he would go about it would be to really start complimenting the young hot chick on the account, then say 'Hey, can you do this special project for me?' Then the sidebar meetings, or phone calls, like, 'Hey, I need something really urgently can I call you?'
'These were young women who are starting out fresh in their career, not knowing how to handle it,' the source added.
It was typical, textbook grooming, harassment, and taking advantage of younger people who might not know better or are afraid to speak out.'
Shane left Juniper around September 2012. At the time, local trade magazine SiliconAngle wrote a story titled 'Scandal at Juniper Leads to Exit of VP David Shane' – though the story has since been removed from its website.
On September 7 that year a DUI case was filed against Shane in a court in Palo Alto, California.
It was not the first time he had been arrested for being allegedly drunk behind the wheel.
He was arrested in February 2010 for another DUI. At first he claimed innocence, then took a plea deal and was given three years' probation and two days in the county jail, San Mateo County Superior Court records show.
Shane was vice president of communications at Hewlett-Packard. Two sources who worked with him said he left there too in 2010 after an HR investigation.
Hewlett-Packard were doing an investigation on him. There were certainly a lot of issues. There was great discomfort among the women around him,' one source said. 'I don't think he was a good guy to be around if you were a woman.'
Shane's PR shop Shane Communications was previously hired by Depp's former business managers, The Management Group, after the Pirates of the Caribbean star sued them for $25million in 2017.
In a countersuit, The Management Group used Shane's firm to accuse Depp of a 'lack of impulse control' in his spending, purchasing hundreds of millions in wine, real estate, and cars. The cases were settled in July 2018.