A young Australian entrepreneur who scored a fortune with a prominent vegan startup and sought to stop the violent slaughter of chickens has been accused of strangling his ex-girlfriend in a luxury Manhattan hotel where he was allegedly “hiding out from claims he fleeced investors in his crypto company,” the New York Post reported.
New York police arrested Ben Pasternak, 26, earlier this week on charges he assaulted his ex girlfriend, popular social media influencer Evelyn Ha, after she tried to film him on her phone inside the Baccarat Hotel on March 31.
Pasternak had been holed up in the $2000-per-night Midtown hotel to dodge process servers with a lawsuit against his cryptocurrency venture Believe, per the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the Post reported.
The criminal complaint against the entrepreneur alleged he squeezed Ha’s neck with both his hands, causing her to seek medical attention for pain and “difficulty breathing,” the Post reported, citing the complaint.
During the assault, he also slammed a door on his ex-girlfriend several times, “causing substantial bruising to both of her arms and both sides of her hips,” court papers claim.
Pasternak’s plant-based business, Simulate, which he sold in 2024, was reportedly once valued at $250 million, and boasted star investors that included Jay-Z.
He founded the company in 2018 at age 19 with the mission of fulfilling his “desire to create great tasting products” while eliminating “outdated and environmentally destructive” slaughtering practices, according to VegNews.
Pasternak denies the charges against him, claiming the slight, 27-year-old Korean-American vlogger was the aggressor.
A spokeswoman for the entrepreneur, Dini von Mueffling, who also described herself as a longtime friend, claimed Ha “flew into a rage” and attacked the young man during the hotel dustup.
“Throughout their relationship, Evelyn physically attacked Ben,” von Mueffling claimed in a statement.
“She was emotionally and physically abusive, very jealous, and threatened him if he ever dared leave the relationship,” she added. “Our fears are now coming to fruition. She’s now making good on her threats.”
Ha, however, said in a YouTube video on her channel that she left Pasternak out of fears for her own “safety and well being.”
Ha’s vlogs on YouTube give viewers a close look at her relationships with friends, products, and foods she likes and glimpses of daily life living in New York.
“There were serious boundaries that were crossed, and I decided to move away from that relationship for the sake of my safety and my wellbeing,” she said in a video posted Friday to YouTube, where she has nearly 500,000 subscribers.
“It’s still really raw for me, to be completely honest, and right now I’m just spending time with friends and family and just trying to take everything day by day, hour by hour, and just try my best to just be in the moment,” Ha said.
In 2024, Pasternak sold the plant-based nugget venture, once dubbed the “Tesla of Chicken.”
He is facing investor allegations related to a separate startup — that he illegally diluted the value of the crypto coins they bought on his trading platform called Believe, according to court papers.
“Consumers lost nearly everything,” two investors wrote in the suit filed in March in Manhattan federal court.
Pasternak pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a felony second-degree strangulation charge and a misdemeanor count of assault.
He was released on his own recognizance and is due back in court in June.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.