'Owned by him': Former Google executive accused of running a 'sex ring'

Andy Rubin is a former vice president of engineering for Google. Photo / Getty

Shocking allegations have been levelled at a millionaire former Google executive whose estranged wife has accused him of running a "sex ring" in a bitter legal battle.

The sensational claims against Android co-founder Andy Rubin emerged when San Mateo Superior Court Judge Susan Greenberg on Tuesday unsealed a civil complaint brought by his estranged wife, Rie Hirabaru Rubin in a California court.

The lawsuit, over his US$350m fortune, seeks to annul a prenuptial agreement she signed before their 2009 marriage, news.com.au reported.

The complaint includes two messages from Rubin's email account, which his wife claims to have viewed, detailing his alleged extramarital relationships with other women.

"One of these women … was complicit with Rubin in running what appeared to be a sex ring," the complaint reads, alleging that he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for sexual favours and relationships with mistresses.

The prenuptial agreement, the suit continues, protected Rubin's wife from considering the financial consequences of a divorce as he engaged in extramarital relationships.

It's also alleged that Rubin concealed millions of his Google earnings from his wife by depositing the money in a separate bank account and making selected payments, some of which went to other women, according to BuzzFeed.

Rie Rubin's lawyers accused him of paying for the expenses of several mistresses "in exchange for offering them to other men" so that he could either watch or join in for threesomes.

USD$90M GOLDEN HANDSHAKE

Mr Rubin left Google in 2014 after a female employee accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex in a hotel room that same year. He ultimately left the company with a US$90 million exit package.

In response to the incident, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and Eileen Naughton, vice president of people operations, wrote an email to employees, noting how the company would be "taking an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority".

The tech firm claims no employees dismissed over sexual harassment claims since 2016 have received payouts.

Multiple Google employees have since gone public with their dissatisfaction over how the claims and subsequent investigation were handled.

Rubin's lawyer Ellen Stross called Rie Rubin's complaint "full of false allegations."

She said in a statement: "This is a garden variety family law dispute involving a wife who regrets her decision to execute a prenuptial agreement.

"It is full of false claims, and we look forward to telling our side of the story".

Rubin worked at Apple in the late 1980s where he acquired the nickname "Android" because of his love of robots.

He took that moniker for the tech company he founded in 2003.

Rubin joined Google in 2005 after it bought Android and oversaw it becoming an open-source operating system for smartphones.

He moved away from that side of operations in 2013 to manage Google's robotics division but left the following year to pursue other ventures.

It later emerged that he had been accused of sexual misconduct while at the tech giant, allegations he strenuously denies.