Studio Partners Ripped Me Off!

In addition to the items listed below, we really need to find a lawyer that would be interested in picking up this case and hopefully do it contingent on any award that is won against Matt and Keith.  Perhaps, one of you might know of someone.  Please contact me immediately.  Also, if one of you might be willing to help foot the bill of a lawyer not willing to do it on a contingency basis, please let me know.

Some of you might be skittish on making yourselves known.  I can understand that.  What I don't understand is how anyone who gave these crooks their hard-earned money can just let them skitter off into the night.

I have talked to no less than 5 different lawyers, three from Colorado and two from California, specifically about this situation.  The Colorado attorneys gave me various advice on what direction I should follow and what my options are.  The California attorneys gave me advice when it comes down to Civil and Criminal litigation of Matthew Longo and Evan (Keith) Harris and their, so-called, LLC.

Studio Partners (names Matt and Evan) broke any number of laws.  Most notably they breached their fiduciary duty to their investors by not completing payments of the quarterly scheduled dividends.  They perpetrated fraud when publicizing to the investors and the rest of the world that they were funding the production of Book Of Joe when all they did is take our money and close down the business.  There are a litany of other corporate laws and other laws that may have been broken which one of the attorneys briefly mentioned, but that would have to be discovered and documented in legal documents when going to court.

In order to file a police report, you first have to provide evidence of a crime.  This is tougher than you might think at first glance.  However, once there's a police report, all other investors can follow suit and apply pressure on the Los Angeles District Attorney's office to pursue a formal investigation.

You don't need to prove a crime in order to pursue civil litigation, but you do have to find them first.  If they can be found and served legal papers, there can be multiple civil cases representing the investors individually.  However, if there's a number of cases that can be litigated simultaneously, there's a real possibility of filing a class action lawsuit.

Here's what you can do right now:

• Contact me!  It will be better to work as a team then to go it alone.  E-mail me at Bruce@StudioPartnersRippedMeOff.com.  If you feel comfortable, please leave me your number and I will call you.
• We can go after these guys at the Federal, State, and Local levels.  See below and please file with each of the following agencies.
• FEDERAL: File a formal complaint to the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission).  I spoke with a Mr. Bob Green of the SEC in June of 2006 regarding this situation.  Even though our contracts say that the securities we purchased are unregistered with the SEC, the SEC still has jurisdiction over cases such as this!  The SEC would be very interested to hear from all of you.  The Department of Corporations (see below) will likely want all of the same information. Make copies of everything and keep the originals.  If you can't e-mail everything to the SEC at enforcement@sec.gov then you will want to mail a package to: Securities Exchange Commission, ATTENTION: Division of Enforcement, 100 F Street NE, Washington DC, 20549.
• STATE: File a formal complaint with the Department of Corporations of California.  The more people who do this, the more this case will be noticed and eventually go under investigation which is exactly what we want.  Be as thorough as possible and supply as much documentation as you can when filing this complaint.
• LOCAL: This is where it gets a little trickier but the reward will well worth it.  File a police report with the Los Angeles Police Department.  You will need proof that a crime was committed.  The most obvious crime of note here is fraud.  Legitimate businesses don't just take your money and then vanish without any communication.  If you are not a Los Angeles local, you can get your own local jurisdiction to file a report which will then be forwarded to the Los Angeles Police Department.  This is key!  At this point, you can start applying pressure on the District Attorney's office to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.  Please let me know if you were able to file any such report.
• Contact the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau.  If you wish, this is a link directly to a complaint form for Studio Partners, LLC.  This might seem futile since in such an aggregious situation the BBB can do no more than document the complaints and attempt to communicate with the firm in question.  They have made this attempt numerous times and, of course, the address is defunct and they will never have any luck.  However, by filing a complaint, it will allow for a repository of complaints to pile up and, eventually, if they get subpoenaed, they can be compiled in to some very convincing evidence.
• If you can get free legal advice through a friend or a program at work, go ahead and do it.  Do not let anyone tell you this LLC is judgement-proof...it isn't!  And, those three little letters cannot protect the crooks who stole our money.  A judge would easily see right through the thinly-veiled corporation Matt and Evan created.
• Contact anyone you know that might have been connected with Matt or Evan.  See if you can determine who they're working with now and where they are.
• Contact me....see the first bullet point.