HOUSTON - Lithium Picnic photographer Philip Warner, who reportedly was fired from SuicideGirls (SG) in November 2006 for violating his contract by operating his wife's photo-gallery website Apneatic.com, has been sued by his former employer for $100,000.
While available details are scarce, there has been speculation that the lawsuit was precipitated by Warner's rise in popularity and involvement in projects with other competitors.
"At some point last fall, SG decided to fire him and sue him for $100,000 when they developed the opinion that my site was a competitor," Warner's wife, Apnea, told AVN Online. "He had registered the domain as a favor to me on his reseller account back when I was with SG and the site was just a modeling portfolio. Four months after I was fired from SG, I redid my site as a pay site, but the site is mine in every shape and form.
"I have a [‘doing business as' name] and a separate checking account that I've used to pay for the domain name since it was registered. SG made no attempt to discuss anything with them; they saw his name listed as registrant and claimed he owned my site. He explained to SG's attorney Paul Loving that it was a clerical error and the site was immediately put back into my name. They ignored this and continued to move forward with the suit."
As a result of stress and financial loss related to the lawsuit, Apnea said, Warner has taken Lithium Picnic offline.
"The lawsuit has put him [Warner] under terrible financial and emotional stress," she said. "SG is now going after my site's profits and claiming that they taught him photography and web design. There's no telling what they will try to take from us at this point, and rather than have him continue to build his site and brand as an asset, we felt it was best to abandon it and start over.
"In their litigation with other sites, some of the settlement terms have been to give the [domain names] over to SG so they can make them into traffic-feeding sites and referrers. Philip doesn't need SG, and he doesn't need Lithium Picnic to be a success. He handed the site and domain over to me, and I'm using it to make people aware of what's going on and to help support the fundraising efforts."
Representatives for Suicide Girls declined to comment.
