On Feb. 13, 2025, employees at the Amador Club opened Slack to see a message from a manager.
“I want to take a moment to acknowledge the frustrations many of you and the team have shared regarding Mickey,” it began.
“Mickey” was Michael Gerold, a near-daily presence at the Amador, a private, members-only social club in San Francisco’s Financial District. Staffers said Gerold behaved like he owned the place — he regularly ignored club rules, grew aggressive when corrected, and acted with a sense of impunity. Female employees reported that he touched them inappropriately.
The feeling that “Mickey gets away with everything” had grown so persistent that a Slack channel was created solely for employees to share their experiences with him, and management felt compelled to address the situation.
“I hear you, and I understand how that can be frustrating,” the message said.
“The reality is that no amount of ‘Mickey did this, Mickey did that’ will change the situation,” it continued.
“With grace, I want to encourage everyone to let it go.”
By the time management told staff to ignore Gerold‘s repeated misbehavior, the allegations had grown far beyond unpaid drinks.
Club members said allegations about Gerold’s conduct circulated quietly for years but grew louder last fall after his former girlfriend Emilia London sought a domestic violence restraining order against him. On the stand, London alleged that from 2022 to 2024, Gerold coerced her into having sex for money and collected more than $100,000 in profits. London told The Standard that Gerold would regularly take her to members-only clubs and bring back men and women to his apartment.
A police report filed in October 2025 and reviewed by The Standard lists Gerold as a suspect for sexual assault and administering drugs to commit a felony, identifying 10 victims.
In another police report, a victim alleges that after an alcohol, ketamine and cocaine-fueled night out at the members-only Battery club in 2025, Gerold arranged for her to be raped by another man in his apartment.
According to the San Francisco Police Department’s Special Victims Unit inspector Tony Flores, Gerold is a suspect in an ongoing investigation. The Standard reviewed police reports and communications regarding the investigation. Gerold has not been charged with any crimes.
For years, Gerold has been a regular at some of the city’s most high-profile members-only clubs, including the Battery, the Modernist, and the Amador. The clubs market themselves as places for the influential and the elite — social playgrounds for brushing shoulders with investors, CEOs, and politicians, all behind closed doors. Prospective members are vetted, interviewed, and often required to be referred by a current member, as with their counterparts at Zero Bond and Core in New York or Soho House in New York and Los Angeles.
In San Francisco, private clubs play a role beyond leisure — they serve as informal offices, particularly for those tied to Silicon Valley. Founders whose companies are based on the Peninsula, angel investors between ventures, or executives who work remotely can take meetings during the day, then socialize with the same circle at night. The 58,000-square-foot Battery club in Jackson Square advertises having “the most stylish boardroom in the city.”
Just being a member of a members-only club imbues credibility — a signal that someone has been screened and deemed both elite and safe enough to belong.
“You‘re paying a premium to have a certain exclusivity,” said Kathlyn Araya, a former Amador employee. “You should feel safe — more than you would at any other kind of bar.”
Gerold appeared to belong in these spaces. He said he brokers real estate transactions. He name-dropped a group of friends he called “the Warrior Kings,” which includes prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists, investors, CEOs, and surgeons.
‘You’re paying a premium to have a certain exclusivity. You should feel safe — more than you would at any other kind of bar.’
Kathlyn Araya, former Amador and Bank membership experience manager
In fact, Gerold testified in his divorce proceedings from his ex-wife Lisa that he’s unemployed, and has been since 2010. The Standard found no record of him in the California Department of Real Estate’s public license database. And court records from the divorce show that he owes Lisa more than $208,000 as of February 2026.
But, club members and staff said, Gerold wore nice suits, always had a beautiful woman on his arm, and frequently hosted after-parties at his 22nd-floor Financial District apartment, with eight balconies and two stocked bars.
They said Gerold used this sheen of success to attract women.
“He’s like a used-car salesman,” said one Amador employee. “He gets talking fast, he makes a lot of promises.”
Gerold denies all allegations against him. He said people who had made reports against him were lying.
“People visiting a residence after a bar or club is not unusual,” he told The Standard. “No inappropriate or untoward conduct has ever occurred” at his apartment, he said.
He said he was never made aware of any complaints about his conduct at the Amador, and he has visited the club hundreds of times since December 2024.
When allegations and complaints around Gerold’s conduct accumulated, some clubs took action. But documents and interviews reveal a culture at other clubs where owners and managers prize members’ privacy and social discretion above all, and where some members said they were punished for speaking up.
Access to members-only clubs can carry real professional and social weight. Membership decisions are generally kept private, and complaints are often handled internally, opaquely.
Gerold has been connected to at least six instances in which police were called or reports were filed with law enforcement over the last three years. He has reportedly been banned, suspended, or had his membership ended by at least three public and private venues in San Francisco in the last year.
In February 2022, Gerold joined the Modernist, a private social club near the Ferry Building with membership costs ranging from $1,000 a year to a $50,000 one-time fee. The club’s founding members include Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, Steve Huffman of Reddit, and Kyle Vogt of Cruise. It’s known for its tightly controlled access and high-profile guests. Elon Musk (opens in new tab), for one, was photographed dining there.
In June 2024, according to internal club documents, owners of the Modernist met with Gerold to discuss reports that he had behaved aggressively toward female staff and members. When the complaints continued, leaders elected not to renew his membership in February 2025. The staff is now instructed not to let Gerold into the venue.
‘I let him know that not everyone is comfortable being touched and that he shouldn’t assume that anyone here wants to be touched.’
Amador staff report
Gerold denied that he was banned from the Modernist. He said he allowed his membership to expire and has visited the club in the past year and was not asked to leave.
Throughout last year, Gerold continued to frequent the Battery, but the Amador became his haunt of choice, according to several staffers and club members.
The Amador Club, previously called the Wingtip, occupies the 10th and 11th floors of the nearly 120-year-old Bank of Italy building at 555 Montgomery St. Invite-only membership costs $250 a month, plus a $2,500 initiation fee. The deliberately old-world enclave of dark wood with poker tables, wine cave, and cigar lounge — one of the few places in the city that allows indoor smoking — caters to a certain type of clientele. “It’s all very man, man, man, man,” one employee said.
Last year, owners Evan Krow and Jon D’Angelica expanded to the ground floor of the building with a second venue meant to signal a new era. While the upstairs club is dark, the downstairs Bank at Amador is bright and open, with large windows, towering ceilings, and white marble walls. It was marketed as a counterpart to the upstairs club — still members-only, but modern, diverse, welcoming to women, and affordable, at just $50 per month.
Gerold became part of that pitch. He was featured heavily in the Bank’s promotion; in a full-page ad in San Francisco magazine, he appeared in all three photos of people at the club. Staffers said the club built a structure in which “trustees” recruited “ambassadors” who recruited additional members. Gerold was a “trustee,” with his photo and biography posted on the club’s website. Other trustees include the San Francisco fire marshal, the CEO of Liquor.com (opens in new tab), and the CEO of Steph Curry’s company Thirty Ink.
“He‘s like the mayor of the Amador,” said Viv Anand, a sales director who joined the club last fall but said he stopped visiting because Gerold was always around. “It just seems like this guy shouldn’t be part of any social club or organization.”
Araya was tasked with recruiting and vetting prospective members as the Amador and Bank’s membership experience manager from April to October 2025. “Gerold’s reputation made expanding the membership to more women incredibly problematic,” she said.
Gerold testified in court in 2025 that he helped to develop the Amador’s business “in the capacity and role of membership, media, member engagement, events, programming, and investor relations.” He said he worked there a total of 30 to 40 hours per month as a “non-employee.”
Gerold told The Standard he “performed services” for the club “at least 40 hours per week for several months” but was never employed by the club, and said he never claimed to have been. In an interview with The Standard, Krow said Gerold is not and never has been employed by the club. But employees said that’s not what Gerold told members and guests.
One employee who worked at the front desk said they overheard Gerold telling a woman, “We’re building such a wonderful thing here. As the owner, I’m so proud.” The employee said they later saw Gerold making out with the woman in the elevator.
The Standard reviewed internal Amador Slack messages, emails, and documents from December 2024 through January 2026. The Amador and Bank staff described an accumulating set of complaints about Gerold’s treatment of women.
In April 2025, an employee emailed a manager about Gerold “touching people,” writing that multiple people had complained of unwanted touching or had come to staffers to say he’d made them uncomfortable.
“I let him know that not everyone is comfortable being touched and that he shouldn’t assume that anyone here wants to be touched,” the employee wrote, adding that they told him “moving forward to please keep his hands to himself.”
An employee posted on Slack about finding two female club members “startled and shaking” after an Oct. 8 interaction with Gerold, “begging” the manager to “make him leave.”
Members, guests, and staffers described Gerold as close with co-owner Krow. Araya said that multiple managers brought up concerns to the owners at weekly leadership meetings, but the concerns fell on deaf ears.
“Management and ownership were aware of the concerns around Mickey’s reputation,” said Araya.
Employees said three members were banned from the club solely because they spoke up about Gerold to Krow.
Krow would neither confirm or deny that he received complaints from employees about Gerold. He declined to answer questions about his relationship with Gerold, including how they met or how long they’ve known each other.
In early October, AI engineer Ben Holfeld, an Amador Club “ambassador” who was helping recruit new members, emailed staff about an event he planned to host, with one condition: He didn’t want Gerold there. Holfeld wrote that multiple women didn’t want to attend because they weren’t comfortable around Gerold. A membership coordinator told him the concerns would be escalated, and staff assured him Gerold wouldn’t attend the event.
Gerold showed up anyway.
The Standard reviewed nine written complaints sent to the Amador about Gerold in the following days, including one from a member who said she had witnessed Gerold “pimping out” London to a man more than a year prior. The member called his behavior “predatory and degrading” and wrote that he should not “be allowed around women in social club settings.”
Gerold denied the allegation of pimping.
An employee emailed Krow and D’Angelica, warning that the reports were “becoming more frequent and more serious,” that members and guests were saying they didn’t feel safe when Gerold was around, and that the club’s reputation could suffer if it was seen as connected to him.
According to internal records reviewed by The Standard, Gerold was suspended that evening, Oct. 14, for 30 days. Staffers were instructed on Slack to keep the reason discreet.
“If anyone does inquire please remain neutral and just simply say he’s busy working on his next project,” a manager wrote. “I beg of you to not share or spread this to anyone!”
Amador co-owner Evan Krow making a toast with Michael “Mickey” Gerold. | Source: San Francisco Magazine
Growing frustrated with the club’s handling of the situation, Holfeld went to the San Francisco Police Department on Oct. 23 to report allegations of rape, sexual assault, and drugging by Gerold he said he’d heard from 10 victims. That investigation remains active.
In late November, after Gerold’s 30-day suspension was up, Holfeld met with the Amador’s owners. Gerold’s name and photo were removed from the club’s website by the end of the week.
In January, an Amador management employee quit, writing in her resignation letter that Gerold’s continued membership and apparent power as a “supervisor” was a reason she could no longer work there.
Krow declined to answer questions related to Gerold’s membership. He initially said he was not aware that the club has a list of members who are banned but later clarified that it does maintain such a list.
After The Standard presented questions to the Amador about Gerold and how the club handled complaints against him, the club ended his membership.
An Amador representative told The Standard that the club “takes all concerns about conduct and safety seriously and maintains clear policies prohibiting any behavior that compromises the well-being of our community.”
The prevailing culture of discretion is exactly what makes San Francisco’s private club scene a draw to the city’s wealthy and elite — access to an always-on social atmosphere anchored by high-end alcohol and late nights with a vetted crowd, where staffers are expected to defer to members in ways that go far beyond those of a typical restaurant or bar.
Gerold has wielded his relationships with the clubs as a social weapon. When his ex-girlfriend London left in 2024, he sent her and her family more than 130 messages, often asserting his prominence in the clubs. He threatened a man she’d started dating with social ruin: “I’m with the leadership at the Battery right now at Holbrook House working on this,” he texted London’s father in April 2024. “In about two weeks he’ll be dead to everybody.”
At the hearing on the requested restraining order, London’s father testified that Gerold took him to the Battery and pointed out which women were prostitutes.
‘Everyone talks about him being a creep. But it’s always vague.’
Dan Hunt, a Battery and Amador club member
London’s request for a permanent restraining order was denied in September. In January, after The Standard sent Gerold a list of questions, he filed for his own domestic violence restraining order against London. A temporary order was granted, but he has yet to serve her or plead his case in court.
When someone with a reputation for misconduct and allegations of assault remains welcome at a club, members said, it undermines the protection they expect from the promised exclusivity.
“We’re surrounded by people in San Francisco who care about their social reputation,” said a former frequent guest in the club scene. She said Gerold was one reason she no longer visits the Amador, the Battery, and other clubs. “I think people don’t want drama. It’s not socially acceptable to have that kind of drama.”
At the Battery, at least three members and guests have submitted written complaints about Gerold over the last two years, according to emails reviewed by The Standard. In response to one member’s complaint, a staffer wrote that they “cannot comment on any action or non-action taken or not taken” due to the Battery’s privacy policy.
In response to questions from The Standard, a representative for the Battery said the club “is committed to maintaining a safe environment and to addressing behavior that falls short of our standards” but declined to comment on Gerold or any allegations against him.
“Everyone talks about [Gerold] being a creep,” said Dan Hunt, a Battery and Amador member. “But it’s always vague.”
Women speaking out about any alleged bad behavior in the club scene risk more than social exclusion — it could threaten their professional networks and careers.
Sexual assault and rape cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute and grueling for victims. But private clubs with membership agreements and codes of conduct aren’t bound by criminal codes and rules of evidence regarding whom they allow to remain as members. The clubs make their own decisions about who belongs and what behavior crosses the line. Members and staffers who complained about Gerold hoped that private clubs might offer accountability where the criminal justice system often falls short.
Instead, they found that social justice among San Francisco’s glitterati may be even more difficult to come by.
San Francisco’s Mayor’s Office for Victims’ Rights (opens in new tab) offers confidential support to victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
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