David Mikkelson, co-founder and CEO of fact-checking website Snopes, has been accused of rape by his estranged wife in a bombshell Facebook post.
Elyssa Young is the second wife of David Mikkelson. They married in November 2016, and split at some point in 2020.
In a September 9, 2021 Facebook post, Young alleges that Mikkelson repeatedly raped her when they were together. She also claims that Mikkelson used gaslighting techniques to make her think she was crazy and is now ignoring her ever since she threatened to take legal action against him.
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In the post (archived here), Young claims that when they were together Mikkelson “raped me every morning”. When she reported him to her therapists, David would allegedly tell them that she “was on drugs”:
“The worst thing about covid-19 for me personally is how complete my comprehension is that if i were to contract it I would die utterly alone.
My parents are completely self absorbed narcissistic pieces of work only concerned with their emotional blackmailing and thier narcissistic supply (My own mother who was once the director of peirce county rape relief, and now is “lay leader of the world for the methodist church doesn’t want to disrupt her happiness with my “rich husband” who quite honestly, raped me every morning. (By engaging with me ONLY while i was asleep and clothed for tearful years.
And yes i regularly sobbed to him to stop and his therapist what was going on. I went to multiple therapists and told them what was happening but they decide upon speaking with david mikkelson that i was”on drugs” and that I was the problem. Not the raping… I went to multiple lawyers all of which were happy to take my savings and then tell me how wonderful david was and that i should not persue domestic violence charges.
He refuses all communication because of course he knows i will not keep quiet so villifying me is of course the logical answer. And villifying is his specialty… i would worry about posting this but really why? David always said facebook wasn’t a good medium to distribute info on.”
It is unclear whether Elyssa Young has reported her claims to the police.
We reached out to both David Mikkelson and Elyssa Young for comment, but have not yet heard back.
David’s first marriage ended in bitter divorce after his first wife, Barbara Mikkelson, alleged that David misappopriated company funds on prostitutes.
According to the Daily Mail, Elyssa was an escort and porn star before marrying David. It was around this time that Snopes was hired by Facebook to censor content on the platform that Mikkelson deemed to be “fake.”
Recently, Mikkelson was suspended from writing articles on his own website after a BuzzFeed investigation found evidence of rampant plagiarism by the Snopes co-founder.
