Pay By Touch, the San Francisco biometrics company in the middle of a legal implosion, employs over 700 people in offices scattered across the country. Previously, we reported that the man at the top, cocaine addict CEO John Rogers, is a convicted felon. Word out of Pay By Touch, however, is that Rogers had his 1998 felony converted to a misdemeanor. Fine. Show us those papers. But either way, a new legal classification won't change what Rogers actually did to his ex-girlfriend and her property. Here are the legal documents detailing the incident so you can see for yourself. It's all there: legal threats, destroyed kitchens, and a promise to make her life a "living hell." Our source has asked us to blur the victim's name.

A source tips us off to how Pay By Touch CEO John Rogers celebrated his 40th birthday at the office. "They had a cake decorated with '240 by 40,' which meant $240 million raised by the time he was 40. The guy is a serious egomaniac." An egomaniac whose company faced legal trouble almost since its formation. If you're the sort who slows down to check out the wreck on the other side of the road, here's the whole sordid history, culled from mountains of legal filings.

Pay By Touch continues to get slapped around legally. A Delaware court has ordered it be placed under outside control, thanks to investor concerns over management. No kidding? Convicted felon and CEO John Rogers blew $190 million-plus in venture funding and has a slew of unpaid employees. He also has a bad case of moral bankruptcy.

Our tale begins with a fresh-faced college grad who, taken in by its gloss of Jetsons futurism, say his career in the biometrics payments industry. Scan your thumbprint, pay your groceries! Who wouldn't fall in love? At the time, the biggest player in the industry was Pay By Touch, the company founded by cocaine addict John Rogers. But when our source took a closer look at the company, he reeled, seeing an ever-shifting executive team and a bad business structure. So our disillusioned young biometrician wrote a little post-college dissertation on the company. His white paper got around to investors, and this displeased Rogers. Here's the threatening missive Rogers composed in response:

Back in June 2004, an email from biometrics firm Pay By Touch went out to potential investors. It touted a "very special & very unusual" investment opportunity. Three years later, Pay By Touch investors were sending out a very different kind of memo about their special and unusual investment. Pay By Touch is the 750-employee company run by financially and morally bankrupt convicted felon John Rogers. The subject line of the recent missive? "The time for change is now." Here's the 100-word version.

Pay By Touch CEO John Rogers has an addiction problem. And we're not talking about his cocaine habit, which multiple sources confirm often kept the convicted felon out of the office for days at a time. During his rocky tenure at the top of the company, Rogers had a bad habit of milling through new CEOs and CFOs.

Pay By Touch CEO John Rogers is more than just financially and morally bankrupt. He's also a convicted felon. It's a tiny little fact Rogers never managed to tell Pay By Touch's investors, raising the possibility he could be convicted of fraud. Here are his conviction papers, provided by a tipster. We're also hearing that Rogers might have had an addiction that kept him out of the office for weeks at a time, but we're still looking for the smoking gun on that. Let us know if Rogers buried it in your back yard.

John Rogers, the founder of biometrics startup Pay By Touch, has filed for personal bankruptcy, the San Francisco Business Times reports. On top of that, four employees are seeking $60,000 or more in back pay from the company, and are trying to force Pay By Touch into bankruptcy to get what they're owed. Pay By Touch is not actually in bankruptcy yet, and the company could try to oppose the move in court or come to a settlement. Rogers, who has a controversial past, holds two-thirds of the company. But investors who have arranged a $163 million loan for the company are suing in a dispute over the makeup of the board. Add that credit line to the $190 million in venture capital the company has raised. With $350 million in stake, you'd think investors would be fighting over how to salvage something from this troubled company.

The investors whose $190 million investment in biometrics startup Pay by Touch is now at risk can't say they didn't know any better. Founder and chairman John Rogers "is just this side of a con man," writes a Valleywag commenter who claims to be a former Pay by Touch employee. Rogers, it turns out, has a history of scandals. There was the time Rogers reportedly blackmailed his girlfriend's husband with threats to turn the cuckold into the IRS. Charming, eh? Here are highlights from a 2001 article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Despite glowing reviews in the press for its biometric payment system, "serial venture raisers (and huge burners)" Pay By Touch is going under, a tipster tells us — and hints that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is possible. Apparently founder and chairman John Rogers has gone missing after a tenure marked by what our tipster called a "spend big, live big, party big, girls, drugs, meals binge of a global scale." Sounds like a fun way to burn through nearly $200 million, raised from the likes of Mobius Venture Capital, the Getty family, and Global Trust Ventures. In a very unusual move, Global Trust cofounder Robert Sigler joined the company as its CFO in July. As far as we've heard, investors never get their hands dirty working at a company in their portfolio — unless they suspect something's going seriously wrong, and they want to pore over the books. Any idea what Sigler has been seeing? Tell us more.