Dan Bender, ex-partner of Colorado Satellite Broadcasting/New Frontier Media, was fired for sloppy paperwork and for allegedly taking kickbacks from adult video companies.
On Oct. 29 of last year, Bender was notified by New Frontier Media, through a third party, that there were major issues over his lease agreements paperwork. The company also claimed that Bender was taking kickbacks from adult video companies. Bender says these charges are false, have never been proven and that New Frontier Media never confronted him directly with the charges.
Bender, whose office was in San Diego, was fired by fax. Bender attempted to contact the company at least 50 times, according to him, but none of the calls were returned.
Bender is now contemplating filing a wrongful termination suit against his former business associates.
"There are so many lawsuits now [against New Frontier Media]," says Bender, "to get behind them, I may be throwing money out the door. But we'll see."
Bender, however, believes he's of more service behind the scenes by helping people with the suits that are already out there. In one instance, Bender just gave an affidavit in the J.P. Lipson lawsuit that was filed in January. In subsequent action, Lipson, on Feb. 24, petitioned for a receivership motion, declaring New Frontier Media's CEO Mark Kreloff and company vice president were "unfit" to run New Frontier Media.
(According to postings on the Yahoo Financial Page, someone identifying themselves as "mediaexpert" alleges that Lipson, himself, has had a checkered past of securities violations and is, supposedly, a past master of Ponzi schemes. Lipson is also accused by "mediaexpert" of having baited-and-switched New Frontier Media in his $1.2 million loan to them.)
Ponzi schemes or not, it's all a very odd turn of events for Bender who, only several months ago, was the company's prime standard bearer and cheerleader. Bender says a number of factors have come into play.
"There were a series of incidents which broke the camel's back," Bender contends. "The company wasn't paying the [adult] studios on licensing agreements when I had given the studios my word on a timetable. Kreloff and Weiner said they would honor certain contracts, then reneged on certain deals." Bender gave much of the same testimony in the Lipson affidavit.
"They weren't upfront," says Bender of the company's management. "They always had another agenda."
Bender feels that it was simply an honor issue, that adult companies trusted him on his word.
"I was always in the front of putting my word out there, that things were going to be fine," says Bender. "As time went on. I saw that they weren't fine. I was getting tarnished in these situations. I had to be the excuse man. Any type of excuse that would delay the payment. That turned me against [New Frontier Media]."
Bender says, ironically, he was being "schmuck-baited" all along by Weiner.
"Schmuck-baiting," according to another posting on the Yahoo Financial Page, is supposedly Weiner's personal terminology for the practice of promising everything and delivering nothing. Bender claims he got hung out to dry on his office bills and expenses for the company, particularly those for phone, electric and equipment leases. He also claims to have a vast file of past-due notices which the company is supposed to have ignored.
-- Gene Ross
