We have been dealing with an Illinois LLC that claimed they could help us complete financing for two motion pictures.
In the course of doing business with these people, we have dealt with major banks, the State Tressury Department, and an assortment of other agencies that the LLC contacted on our behalf. On the surface, everything looked very legit.
In December 2006, we were told that this LLC had contracted with a large corporate utility company and that State Tax Credits belonging to one of our motion pictures had been partially sold for the LLC to handle development costs and banking fees; we were very surprised that the utility company didn't contact us directly, as we are the owners of the property which is still in development and not as yet financed or in preproduction. Apparently, they cut the LLC a check for 120k, which they deposited into THEIR bank account. We repeatedly asked the LLC for copies of this agreement made in relation to our production, and they refused to comply, stating that the document is their property, the contact (utility company is their's exclusively, and so on.
Around this same time, they sent us cashiers checks for 15K each for expenses they had asked us to itemize under development costs; apparently, it was part of this 120K they obtained on our productions behalf for Tax Credits, or so it would seem.
Now, all heck has broken lose: the LLC can't perform, and worse, we have uncovered that one of the officers has previously been convicted on 6 felony counts for forging legal documents. Apparently, this person is still on parole after doing 2 years in prison. We have no idea what has become of the majority of the money they got from the utility company; we are gravely concerned about how and where else they might be potentially representing us and our business. They refuse to co operate with us in any manner which would allow us to straighten any of this out. They in fact went around us to our Financial partners and tried to initiate another deal for another party and at that point, everyone on our side of the deal had enough of the shenanigans.
We want to jettison these con artists, but we are concerned for the utility company and wondering about our level of liability. We are most concerned about being able to determine if a criminal fraud has been commited, what our options are, and where we go from here.
We aren't rich Hollywood Producers--otherwise we'd already be in a lawyers office. This is a great example of how due diligence is always a great idea no matter how fabulous something looks on the surface. Advice is appreciated.
In the course of doing business with these people, we have dealt with major banks, the State Tressury Department, and an assortment of other agencies that the LLC contacted on our behalf. On the surface, everything looked very legit.
In December 2006, we were told that this LLC had contracted with a large corporate utility company and that State Tax Credits belonging to one of our motion pictures had been partially sold for the LLC to handle development costs and banking fees; we were very surprised that the utility company didn't contact us directly, as we are the owners of the property which is still in development and not as yet financed or in preproduction. Apparently, they cut the LLC a check for 120k, which they deposited into THEIR bank account. We repeatedly asked the LLC for copies of this agreement made in relation to our production, and they refused to comply, stating that the document is their property, the contact (utility company is their's exclusively, and so on.
Around this same time, they sent us cashiers checks for 15K each for expenses they had asked us to itemize under development costs; apparently, it was part of this 120K they obtained on our productions behalf for Tax Credits, or so it would seem.
Now, all heck has broken lose: the LLC can't perform, and worse, we have uncovered that one of the officers has previously been convicted on 6 felony counts for forging legal documents. Apparently, this person is still on parole after doing 2 years in prison. We have no idea what has become of the majority of the money they got from the utility company; we are gravely concerned about how and where else they might be potentially representing us and our business. They refuse to co operate with us in any manner which would allow us to straighten any of this out. They in fact went around us to our Financial partners and tried to initiate another deal for another party and at that point, everyone on our side of the deal had enough of the shenanigans.
We want to jettison these con artists, but we are concerned for the utility company and wondering about our level of liability. We are most concerned about being able to determine if a criminal fraud has been commited, what our options are, and where we go from here.
We aren't rich Hollywood Producers--otherwise we'd already be in a lawyers office. This is a great example of how due diligence is always a great idea no matter how fabulous something looks on the surface. Advice is appreciated.
