The Gary Buckley Woolever File: A Decade of Threats, One Default Judgment, and the Question of Who Actually Defrauded Whom

A Note Before This Piece

I've written and rewritten my side of this story more than a hundred times over the last ten years. It changes almost every time, sometimes within hours of me calling it finished. I'm telling you that upfront because I want you to understand this was never something I could write about cleanly. Even now, I don't fully know what I feel about Gary Buckley Woolever, except that it's some combination of pity, anger, and a hate I'm not going to pretend isn't real.

So I have decided something. Unless I need to bring up his name to outline his involvment in some other form of harrassment scheme, I will not speak another word, write another section, publish any more articles on Gary Buckley Woolever until he passes and the only last words ever, will be mine.

In the meantime, the published article below written by a third party will suffice.

The Partnership

Gary invested $440,000 in a business venture with Jang. The business failed. Gary had more involvement in that failure than he has ever publicly acknowledged. He sued, and by Jang's own account, that decision was understandable, at least initially. Gary appeared to genuinely want his money back. But after losing early and repeatedly in his own lawsuit, his approach shifted. He became willing to do whatever it took to win, which meant abandoning any accountability for his own role in the business's collapse.

The Other Side of the Failure

Jang was not without fault here, and this file would be incomplete without saying so plainly. At 22, he was a top salesperson, and went on to spend five years ranked nationally in the top five as a lead account executive for a major wholesale finance firm, with hundreds of millions of dollars in sales behind him. That track record convinced him he could execute on a business idea he was, in reality, not equipped to run.

He was not a fraud. He was, by his own admission, unprepared for what that venture demanded of him.

One unresolved financial question remains central to this file: how much of the spending in question was clearly authorized, and how much relied solely on Jang's recollection that Gary had verbally approved it. Jang estimates roughly half falls clearly into the first category. The other half depends on memory alone. He repaid Gary a substantial sum afterward, and years later, once he had stability again, attempted to fully resolve the relationship financially. That offer, detailed further below, was rejected, and what followed it is the most relevant part of this file.

One exception is worth noting directly: Gary's attorney, Bruce Danielson, appears by Jang's account to have acted professionally throughout, attempting a peaceful resolution that Jang himself was too afraid to accept at the time.

How the Default Judgment Actually Happened

This is the section of the file most frequently misrepresented by outside reporting.

Gary did not win his case on the merits. He won it because Jang had no attorney for most of the proceedings and, once KOMO 4 News became involved, had no resources left to continue fighting. The resulting judgment included the word fraud, language Gary has since cited publicly as though a court weighed evidence and ruled accordingly.

That is not what a default judgment is. Under civil procedure, if one party fails to respond, a judge has no choice but to enter judgment based on the unanswered claims. It is a procedural outcome, not an independent finding of fact. It reflects an absence of response, not a verdict on truth.

A bench warrant followed the same pattern: requested by Gary's attorney rather than law enforcement, and written in language closely resembling a criminal arrest warrant. KOMO 4 News, the Wall Street Journal, and the NFL Players Association each later cited that warrant publicly as evidence that Jang was a fugitive.

The judgment itself totaled $970,000, growing to nearly $2 million with interest within a few years, entered while Jang had no income, no stable housing, and had survived two suicide attempts in the preceding period.

A Decade of Pursuit

What followed extended well beyond the original lawsuit. Gary and his attorney located Jang within months of him obtaining a new, private phone number. Jang entered a payment plan and paid close to $200,000 over the following year, while Gary simultaneously told the court Jang was uncooperative and secured a bench warrant regardless. When Jang requested a pause due to unsustainable payment increases, Gary refused. Shortly afterward, the Wall Street Journal published the story that would shape public perception of Jang for years.

When Jang later attempted a final resolution, he offered a $1 million settlement over ten years through a professional mediator, raised to $1.5 million, along with an offer to co-author a book and sign over rights to a television opportunity Gary claimed to have access to. Gary declined every option. His only non-negotiable condition was a non-disclosure agreement that would have permanently barred Jang from discussing him publicly, with no equivalent restriction placed on Gary.

The Pattern That Followed

In the years since, Jang reports additional forced depositions, the use of a friend's suicide as a pressure tactic during legal proceedings, and what he describes as a coordinated intimidation attempt inside a courtroom. That specific claim of coordination cannot be independently verified and is presented here as Jang's account, not as established fact.

What is documented: thousands of messages and emails spanning twelve years, continued contact as recently as June of this year, and outreach to Jang's family members, including his father and a sister, that Jang characterizes as an attempt at isolation.

One additional claim in this file is held to a higher evidentiary standard: Jang's assertion that Gary's wife has played a role in this campaign, based on email registration records he says he possesses. This file notes that claim will be retracted publicly if further investigation does not support it.

Where This Leaves Things

Jang has reported elements of this case to the FBI, citing limited confidence in local law enforcement's ability to respond to a sustained pattern of this nature.

This file's conclusion: Gary Buckley Woolever and his obsession and mental stability should be questioned.