tenths of the law, John Bowen, aka John T. Bone, owner of Cream Entertainment, is a man possessed. One of the more bizarre custody battles witnessed in the adult industry now makes Bone the proud owner of Windsong, a video that garnered an Editor's Choice in the February 1999 issue of AVN.
Then, again, Bone has always owned Windsong. Or did he? He claims to have put the money up, entitling him to it. But you couldn't have proved that by Bowen's ex-partners Charley Frey, a Florida dance agent, and Jerry Garfinkel, owner of Impressive Productions. Both Frye and Garfinkel attempted several weeks ago to arrest the tape from Bowen's possession. They didn't succeed.
Ironic, says Bone about the attempted coup. Neither Frye nor Garfinkel were behind the project in the first place, mostly for financial reasons. According to Bone. Garfinkel denies this claiming that certain subject matter slated for Windsong had him antsy, but that was pretty much it. Garfinkel even pointed out that he had been on the set in support of the project. No matter, it would seem.
Windsong was scheduled for release Monday, February 8, but Frey and Garfinkel, who have had major tiffs with Bone in recent months, apparently had other ideas. The two of them showed up bright and early at the doorstep of L.P. Duplicating in San Fernando Valley. Frey was laying claim to the title and Garfinkel supported Frey's position as an interested third party. Proof of Frey's claim to Windsong was a copy of the DBA dating back to February, 1997 in which Frey, Bone and Garfinkel originally filed for a partnership called CREAM. Though he's admitted on more than one occasion to having been bought out by Bone, Garfinkel is now saying he wants the company back and intends to run it the "right way". With Frey, evidently.
Garfinkel: "We plan to sit down and make some kind of deal and pay Charley some of the money he [Bone] owes him, and work out some kind of deal with me."
Although Bone hasn't spoken to Frey since last August, Frey was in town for the Houston gangbang on February 6 and evidently formed a plan of action with Garfinkel that involved Windsong. Tipped off through his sources that Frey and Garfinkel were going for the big grab on the following Monday morning, Bone had a pre-emptive "cease and desist" letter fired off to the lab signed by Barry Menes of the Menes Law Corporation of Century City. The Menes letter states that any attempt to release the tapes to Frey and Garfinkel would cause "irreparable harm and substantial damages" to Bone and that L.P. Duplicating could be held responsible for same.
According to a spokesman at L.P. Duplicating, since no clear-cut papers of ownership to the title were being produced by either side, the lab was leaving the wisdom-of-Solomon matter up to its attorneys on which way to carve the baby.
"We were told there could be copyright, patent and chain of custody issues involved," the spokesman said. The lab was subsequently informed that a chain of custody issue did exist, and that Bone, by virtue of bringing the Windsong master in for duplication, was entitled to his tapes.
"I was told even if Warner Bros. had come in and made a claim to Windsong, I'd still have to give the title over to Bone and let everybody duke it out later with baseball bats in the parking lot," the spokesman said. Bone came in Wednesday afternoon, February 10, supposedly with a truck, a $9,000 check and a baseball bat [for real]. He drove off with his tapes. The spokesman scoffed at industry rumors that Frey had sent "a couple of goons" over to the lab earler in the day to manually retrieve the tapes.
Windsong notwithstanding, Frey's claiming that Bone still owes him $36,000 as a payout figure when they began locking horns on various issues last summer and split up. When the company originally formed in Feb., '97, Garfinkel was to have put up $16,000 [according to figures supplied by Garfinkel to Bone]. Frey kicked in with $36,000 in cash and talent agent commissions, as he represented many of the girls that Cream used for its shoots. Bone supposedly put up the lions share of $135,000 in cash and services. As part of the original partnership agreement, Cream's completed movies were given to Garfinkel to distribute.
The Frey-Bone fallout stemmed over the Jerry Springer scandal. Kendra Jade, a Cream contract girl, was alleged to have had sex in a Chicago hotel room with the TV show host. A hidden camera supposedly recorded the historic moment which also involved Jade's stepmother, Kelly. Jade was interviewed about the liaison on Howard Stern's radio show but played coy with Stern. Action stills from the encounter did appear in the Globe, a national tabloid, but the tape, itself, has never surfaced.
It's been long rumored, however, that the Springer camp paid anywhere between $150,000 to $400,000 to make the tape disappear. Bone has neither confirmed nor denied any part of the "payoff" story or his involvement with it. Both Frey and Garfinkel have admitted they'd like to get their hands on the Springer money.
In any event, Frey, a Springer consort, distanced himself from Bone in righteous indignation when the story went public and said he wanted out of the company. Garfinkel, himself, wasn't too pleased over the developments of the Springer scandal and predicted at the time that "karma was going to bite [Bone] in the ass." Meanwhile, there were the Cream contract girls to deal with. Miffed at the exorbitant attention being focused on Jade, Jasmin St. Claire, who was under a dance contract to Frye, threatened to leave the company. And she eventually did - going to Rob Black's Extreme Associates where she has an exclusive contract.
Zöe, the third contract girl in the Cream stable, had a series of run-ins with Frey who was also her dance agent. Zöe felt she could get more money by representing herself and sent Frye a letter to that effect. That's when Frye exploded.
In a well-documented phone call both to Bone and Garfinkel who was conferenced in, Frye was supposed to have told both Bone and Garfinkle to fire St. Claire and Zöe or that he [Frye] would have them killed by the Israeli mafia.
"Those fucking whores! I made them. I can break them!" Frye is reported to have said. "They're done. They're fired. They're out! I want their names taken off MY boxcovers. I'll fucking crucify them [Jasmin and Zöe]! If I don't have my money [the $36,000] I'll show you who you're dealing with! You know I can fucking do it!
Frye later denied making those threats, saying, "I don't know. If someone made those to me, I'd call the police." Frey, in a July, 1998 AVN interview, also threatened lawsuits against both Bone and Garfinkel but none have been forthcoming.
Meanwhile, Garfinkel and Bone registered a DBA partnership in the name of Cream Entertainment. Bone then asked Garfinkel for the up-to-the-minute sales figures. Bone's claiming, however, that Garfinkel dodged the issue just as he supposedly done in the past when Frye asked for them. Garfinkel's alleged refusal to do so sent Frye into raging fits on more than one occasion, according to Bone.
"Frye threatened Garfinkel with violence during those times," Bone attests. Frye has denied these charges.
Dismayed by Garfinkel's apparent lack of cooperation on the sales reports, Bone approached Joe Spallone of Gourmet Video in August, 1998 about a distribution deal. Possibly to ward off that deal, Garfinkel finally came up with figures documenting $162,920.28 in sales and expenses. Garfinkel also showed that his initial investment of $16,000 had been returned to him, thus buying him out of all partnerships. Garfinkel, according to Bone, said all of the $162,000 and change was his investment returned plus sales commissions.
"Call me a fucking idiot, but that's how stupid I am," says Bone. "I never saw any of the money. I believed Jerry. One hundred percent of the income of Cream went to Garfinkel."
On August 5, 1998, Bone and Garfinkle reached an accord. Bowen would have sole ownership of Cream, and Garfinkel would handle distribution through Impressive Productions. Garfinkel apparently convinced Bone that, without his [Garfinkel's] help, Cream could not sell product to GVA. The stipulation of the new deal was that Bone would do all the future billings and money collections and Garfinkel would continue to be paid a commission on sales. Garfinkel turned over all masters and other relevant materials to Bone who, in turn, went to Sterling video to have some product duplicated.
Reluctant to do business with Bone, Sterling contacted Garfinkel who informed them he had been bought out by Bone and no longer had claims on the masters. Garfinkel suggested that Sterling open a line of credit directly with Bone and supplied the duplicator with a list of masters that were turned over to Bone. A spokesman from Sterling confirms all of this.
Garfinkel also informed the company's printer, Breen Graphics, that Garfinkel had been bought out of Cream and that accounts should be opened for Bone. At Garfinkel's request, his name was removed from all boxcovers as keeper of records. Bone's was inserted. Bone then released several videos through Impressive, but the initial release figures slowly declined from 2800 to 1200.
A fight over Maximum Zöe speeded up the growing rift between Garfinkel and Bowen. Garfinkel blames bad boxcovers and Bowen's insistance on using artist Bob Veze as reasons for the poor sales showings. Bone hired Veze under the assumption that Veze, who worked artistic magic with Savannah during her heyday at Leisuretime, could make lightning strike twice with Savannah lookalike Zöe.
"John's a control freak. He wants to control everything," says Garfinkel, "but even John admits he fucked up with Veze."
Garfinkle wasn't particularly enamored about the subject matter of Maximum Zöe, either.
Garfinkel: "When you got shit like Maximum Zöe, what are you supposed to do? All the scenes feature Zöe. You either like the big blond with the big tits or you don't. There's no in-between here for the guy who likes the slim brunette. You're limiting your marketplace. If the idea behind featuring a girl in five scenes was so good, Vivid would be doing it."
Garfinkel also says a similar strategy prompted the demise of Deep Inside Angel's Ass [featuring Angel Hart in five sex scenes], another Cream title which had a poor showing at the box office. That title, like Maximum Zöe, did 1,200 pieces out the door. Garfinkel also has stories to tall about another Cream release, Whore Stories.
Garfinkel: "There's a lawsuit pending on that one. Charley got an investor to put up $25,000 on the agreement that it was to be a Jasmin St. Claire picture. [St. Claire appears in one scene but not on the boxcover.] But John decided to change the title from City Whores to Whore Stories with that out-of-date boxcover. We don't know what Bone did with that money, but he didn't put it into that picture. The picture went down the tubes."
In November, 1998, Bone fired Garfinkel and hired Mike Barbella to sell product in-house. To Garfinkel's way of thinking, Bone had a "master plan."
"He [Bone] fucked me," Garfinkel says. "He dropped me like a hot potato and almost put me out of business."
Aside from petty differences, Bone's claiming that Garfinkel owes him between $60,000 to $100,000 extending over an 18-month sales period. Bone says all money was to have gone into a Cream account. Garfinkel dismisses these charges, stating that the agreement was to put money back into distribution which he says he did. No apparent paperwork has been produced, however, supporting either claim.
"He [Garfinkel] handed me a set of bullshit figures," Bone said. "He's going to hang himself with them."
On the other hand, Garfinkel says that Bone bounces checks [almost totalling $17,000 according to him] and owes money all over town, claiming that one of the vendors has been threatening Bone with action from the D.A.'s office. Bowen says this is absurd.
Garfinkel: "Bone was controlling all the money. Whenever he wanted money for contract girls he got it. Anything he wanted, he got. But he cries poverty that he doesn't have any money. He drives around in a brand new Mercedes. He bought Zöe a Corvette and Kendra Jade a car [a BMW which was returned]."
Bone has since turned over the Mercedes to Mike Barbella as a belated Christmas bonus.
Bone: "This guy [Garfinkel] has pocketed all my money for a year and a half. He's now criticizing me for having no money. He needs a wheelbarrow just to carry his balls around."
Garfinkel: There's a principle involved here, and I can't keep letting him [Bone] fuck me. If he wants to bring out a can of beans, I'll open up a can of beans. I can vouch for the money and where it went. Bone can't."
Bone is saying that he'd be up for a solution where he could powwow with Frye and iron out their differences through a mediator. To Bone's way of thinking, Garfinkel's totally out of the picture.
[geneross.com has an exclusive interview coming up with Charley Frey that promises to create even more fireworks.]
SCSI Post to John T. Bone: "No Masters"?
No sooner had director John T. Bone resolved the long-winded custody battle over Windsong and his fight over it with ex-partners Charlie Frey and Jerry Garfinkel, that Garfinkel and Frey were at it again. This time Garfinkel went to the editing bay, SCSI Post, armed to the teeth with papers claiming he and Frey had two-thirds ownership of Cream Entertainment. Garfinkel told owner Jake Jacobs he and Frey wanted both the titles Kandid Kristen and Two Hot for Porn 2 and were willing to satisfy outstanding bills with SCSI in order to put their hands on the masters.
"I'm not really sure what I'm going to do," said Jacobs at the time. Jacobs was put in the exact same position as L.P. Duplicating in the resolution of the Windsong controversy. Jacobs said he was conferring with his attorneys and that they were running a check on Cream to determine its status, whether it was a partnership or sole proprietorship.
"I've got to find out who's who," mused Jacobs. "I'm in the middle of a bunch of people saying different things. It's hard not to take the money [Garfinkel and Frey's]. I've got to keep my doors going too." In a manner similar to the Windsong rescue, Bone got his tapes after Jacobs got some money.
Bone: "The question is this, why is Jerry Garfinkel going after movies that were made long after he'd been bought out? Why did he make a move on Kandid Kristen, a movie that was shot in December. What's is claim on that? He was out of the company in August. He was out as a distributor [of Cream product] in November."
Garfinkel, not aware of the disposition of the tapes, at the time had this to say.
Garfinkel: "Honestly, I don't know what Jake Jacobs is going to do, whether he's going to release the tapes to Bone or not. I don't know what his position is. He was going to talk to his landlord who I think is an attorney."
