Did TV show host Jerry Springer pay a sizeable amount of cash to make a sex tape featuring him and porn star Kendra Jade in a Chicago hotel room disappear? Ex-business partners of John T. Bone seem to think that Springer paid Bone between $150,000 to $400,000 hush money to make an imminent scandal go away.
Charley Frey, a Florida dance agent, and former partner in Cream Productions, has lashed out against Bone, claiming that Bone owes him money from Springer's taped affair with Jade, a "fucking fruitloop," in Frey's words. Frey is basing his knowledge of the Springer money according to comments Jade is supposed to have made when she was on the outs with Bone last November. Jade said, at the time, there was $400,000 paid to Bone. Jade has since recanted those statements about there being Springer hush money.
Frey: "It's all bullshit. She told the truth the first time. We all know what the truth is. We all know that everything she said is true. She told me that's where the money came from. It's all irrelevant. What's relevant is that the guy [Bone] has robbed from everybody. He's lied to everybody."
Frey makes no bones about wanting his share of the Springer booty, even though he says he was adamantly opposed to the so-called set-up that allegedly drew Springer to a hotel room. "I took the risk. I'm entitled to a piece of the profits," says Frey. "That's pragmatic. That's business."
Frey also charges Bone with mismanaging Cream funds throughout their business relationship.
[Under terms of their partnership agreement, the other ex- Cream partner, Jerry Garfinkel, was supposed to have been managing Cream money, not Bone. According to Bone, Frey was supposed to have asked Garfinkel a number of times for accountability including money. Getting none, Frey, according to Bone, threatened Garfinkel with reprisals on a number of occasions.]
Frey: "That's a bunch of shit. Think about the people Jerry dealt with for 20 years. You think Jerry's worried about MY threats. Let's be logical, here. It's utter nonsense. It's Bone's drug-induced fantasies. I've run businesses for years. Cream had enough revenue that if the money was properly managed, there was no question in my mind that everyone could have been paid."
Frey admits he asked Garfinkel for the records.
Frey: "I don't think it was a question of him [Garfinkel] not wanting to give them, I think he just didn't do them. I just think they weren't properly done. He's used to running a business where a lot of people don't keep accurate records. Jerry's used to that type of a business. It takes time to get used to having to make reports to other people."
[Bone: "These comments are absolute nonsense. Garfinkel was dazzling us with bullshit justifying never returning any money."]
Frey says he re-entered the Cream picture when he got a phone call from Garfinkel telling Frye that he [Garfinkel] got "fucked" and needed to get together.
Frey, along with Garfinkel, is attempting to arrest two-thirds of the assets of the company besides putting their hands on the alleged Springer windfall.
"I'm exercising my rights under the law," Frey says. According to Frey, no document exists showing that Frey and Garfinkel signed off on their original partnership and waived future entitlements to Cream. However, Frey is saying that Bone, the third partner, is operating Cream under that premise.
Frey: "I guess, according to the laws of the state of California if a partnership is in effect, until it's been dissolved, that partnership still remains in effect. Right? Check with an attorney. The reality is that Jerry and I are two-thirds partners in the general partnership that is Cream. We own Cream, Jerry and I. All the subsequent partnerships are completely fraudulent. [Bone incorporated Cream Entertainment last August after the "split."]
"Do you own stock in any company? So the company calls you tomorrow and says, 'we changed the name from IBM to IBM-B. Your stock's worthless.' Do you think that would be fairly unreasonable? This is exactly the same thing. According to all our lawyers, Bone can keep making new corporations and partnerships 'til death do us part, it means nothing. I'm just exercising our right. Me and Jerry own two-thirds of the company. It's pretty simple."
Frey gets a particular chuckle out of the story going around about him sending a "couple of goons" over to L.P. Duplicating. The goons were supposed to have walked in with baseball bats, read the riot act to whomever, then walked out with Windsong, a video title that has been the source of contention among the ex-Cream partners, or current Cream partners depending how you look at it.
Frey: "Let's be honest. Would that be logical? Ah puh-leese. This is Bone's twisted fantasies of what is or isn't. [Bone never spread the "goons" story. It was told to him.]
"But he's [Bone] committed several frauds. He's trying to use Jerry's bar codes. Wrong. Can't do it. Contact the state. You'll find that Bone is using Jerry's bar codes. If Jerry's not a part of the partnership, Bone wouldn't be able to use Jerry's bar codes. If Bone's using Jerry's bar codes without his expressed written consent, that's fraud and probably violates some criminal statutes. If, in fact, he says that Jerry is a partner, right, and he's using the bar codes with his consent, then where's Jerry's share, and mine too, of all the profits including the money that was extorted from the Jerry Springer show and everything else. Can John supply paper work for those bar codes?"
On the subject of Windsong, and, as an argument supporting his claim to it, Frey says that he and Garfinkel saw the initial rushes on the vid, but that Bone was claiming they were out of the picture by the time the feature was being shot.
[Production on Windsong began in Feb., 1998 when Garfinkel and Frey were still involved as partners. The feature was shot piecemeal and finished at the end of the year when Frey and Garfinkel were supposedly out of the picture. Frey is saying that its "unadulterated bullshit" to say that he and Garfinkel never wanted in on Windsong because of its huge budget, which is the story being told. "Not only did we promote Windsong, says Frey, "Jerry and I were big advocates of the project. It was a very positive thing."]
Frey: "Jerry and I left 100% of the creative control to John. John didn't have the money to pay [director Simon Poe] from the very beginning. He [Bone] bounced checks on him and [Poe] couldn't complete it at the time and do anything else because he didn't get his money. I don't blame him [Poe]."
Frey says his specific charge of mismanagement of assets centers on the feature, Maximum Zöe.
Frey: "It was supposed to have been City Whores starring Jasmin St. Claire. [Frey is confusing Maximum Zöe with Whore Stories.].
Frey is claiming Bone "breached another aspect of the partnership" because an investor of Frey's specifically put $25,000 into the project on the condition that it star Jasmin St. Claire. [Bone said there never was a stipulation about Jasmin St. Claire in the contract.]
Frey: "Jasmin left because she wasn't getting paid because of John's stupidity. The brandname of Jasmin St. Claire is extremely well known. According to the agreement, Bone was supposed to release it under the name of Jasmin St. Claire. Not only did he not do that, he didn't give the investor any of the money that was due him. The investor was due 100% of all revenues until $25,000 was reached. Bone never gave him a dollar. Ask John for the paperwork. The tape sold 1300 pieces. If it was a Jasmin movie, it would have sold at least 2500 pieces. Something wrong with that picture. Where's 80% of the revenues? It was the agreement."
[Frey was asked to name the particular investor. He said, "What's the point? It's an outside corporation."]
Frey says that it's still a partnership regardless of what Bone is putting out on the street.
Frey: "The original partnership has never been dissolved. All subsequent partnerships are irrelevant. Call an attorney. Call the state. Call the police."
Frey also says that Bone has bounced "countless" checks, including many to female talent whom Bone, according to Frey, was hiring on the cheap to begin with. [Most of the talent was Frey's contract girls.]
Frey: "It's highly illegal [the bounced checks]. It's a very big thing. It subjects the partnership to mismanagement." Also, according to Frey's allegations, Bone was claiming fees for agents Jim South and Reb Sawitz.
Frey: "Not according to Reb. Not according to Jim South. They never got any of their money. Then we talk about the secretary who's salary magically increased to $700 a week. Not according to her. She was supposed to have gone from $300 to $700. [Angela, who went from secretary to P.R. girl.] Isn't that interesting? All this mismanagement and fraudulent use of the general partnership's funds...how about the rent? It's never been paid. He's months behind. He [Bone] borrows money from the landlord, then he borrows more money from the landlord. He's $30,000 in debt with the guy. How about that one?
"In a general partnership, the law doesn't recognize individuals. Everybody is held equally and separately liable. He's [Bone] subjecting me and Jerry to all kind of liabilities and criminal risk. We would be derelict in our duties not to take back control of the company and attempt to pay everyone the money they're owed. We have lawyers handling it. We're pursuing every aspect of the law."
Frey had made similar comments last summer when the Springer scandal came to national attention. Frey, at the time, said he was pursuing legal action against Bone. He was asked why he had not followed up on those threats.
Frey: "I only had one-third partnership. Now it's two-thirds, Jerry and I saying we don't want the one-third running the company. Last summer John had Jerry snowed that I was the bad guy until Jerry found out otherwise. While Jerry and John were in cahoots, it was difficult to do anything in a civil environment. But Jerry discovered it was all bullshit. Jerry's a nice guy, and one of the most honest guys I ever met. John can be persuasive. But a majority partnership changes the rules. Now it's totally different. Once Bone is completely out of the picture, I can fix everything. I'm a master of publicity. I've got deals in place to release high-quality product under the Cream name. I do this every day."
Frey claims his lawyers are telling him he has strong legal grounds to stand on, bearing in mind that the company they're fighting over is not a publically-held one.
According to Frey, problems began when Kendra Jade came on board and Bone "fell in love" with her and started taking pain pills for his back.
Frey: "Know anything about the disease of addiction? If you check into it, you'll find there'a transference of that addiction. Drug addicts, alcoholics, of which John admits he's one [Bone's been on the wagon 15 years]...ask a doctor if, all of a sudden, someone who's been clean and sober started a daily regimen of narcotic painkillers. What do you think? The disease of addiction can be transferred then insanity takes place which is what this is all about. You become illogical and insane. That's what made him [Bone] do the Jerry Springer-thing in the first place. He destroyed Kendra's career over that."
Frey claims his own personal initiative, not to mention his closeness to Springer. got the Jerry Springer show publicity up and running in the first place.
Frey: "It was happening. We had the Jerry Springer Show promoting one of our movies [the upcoming World's Biggest Gangbang]. How valuable is that? Pretty darn valuable. You can't get that kind of national press. They [Springer] would have done it over and over. How many pieces do you think we could have sold of that movie, having Jerry Springer promote it for an entire hour on just one show? Probably more than a couple of thousand?
"Bone goes and sets up that whole thing with Kendra. He uses company lawyers. Our money. Then he collects the money and doesn't disseminate it. Something wrong with that picture? Where did he come up with a Mercedes? A Corvette? A BMW? Why's he driving a Mercedes when the landlord hasn't been paid? With credit as bad as John's, where did all that money come from? If he had all that money, why didn't he pay bills? We know exactly where the money went. It paid the back debt on his mortgage. I'll bet if you research with the bank on his house, all of a sudden, around that time, big payments came in. He was ready to lose his house. If John's on the up and up, no problem. There's no question in my mind that John received the money. Personally, I wouldn't have done it to the guy [Springer] in the first place. The inherent value to the company would have been dramatically more than $350,000. What's $350,000 if I sold 10,000 pieces of the World's Biggest Gangbang video. Bone killed it by taking a million-dollar potential value and sacrificing it all for the short-term goal of $350,000 minus what the lawyers were paid."
[Do the math, 10,000 pieces x $11 = $110,000, not one million.]
[Bone shows a record of his last two years of mortgage payments. They show no sudden surge of payments or influx of big money. Bone also says knowing of Frey's close relationship with Springer, why didn't Frey ask Springer point-black about the money. "Charley would have been told by the source, himself, that I didn't get a dime, and that would be an end to this nonsense."]
Frey says Bone started fucking Jade 'from Day One' when she first walked into his office. [Bone does not deny this.}
Frey: "He [Bone] does this to every single girl he can get away with. Kendra told me in December that she was absolutely, positively aware of everything that was going on. Kendra's very smart in that regard. Most girls fuck John, not because he's a handsome fellow. They fucked him because they thought they had to. Kendra was smart enough to make him think she really liked him."
Bone: "These are the ravings of an insane second-hand car salesman. These two brigands [Frey and Garfinkel] have approached all of my vendors with their nonsense and their bully-boy tactics, and everyone's blown them off. I don't need to defend myself against this. The guy [Frey] contradicts himself at every turn. I'm impressed at the part where he says he's a genius and has deals in place. From my information, I know he's running his business out of a back bedroom. But what do I know."
