Metro Studios has filed a lawsuit with the Los Angeles County Superior Court against Defiance Films and co-founders Anthony Simone and Norman Bentley alleging that they breached their contracts with Metro (where they formerly were employed) and conspired to damage Metro’s revenues and reputation in forming Defiance.
The lawsuit alleges that Simone and Bentley were planning to start up Defiance while still employed by Metro, thus violating their contractual non-competition and loyalty obligations to Metro, the suit claims.
As evidence of the claimed violations, the suit charges that an Internet domain name, www.defianceproduction.com, was registered by Metro director of production Keith O'Connor on Jan. 11, 2005, approximately one month before the defendants left Metro; that a “Producer Agreement” with Matrix Content, Inc. (presided over by Bentley), a supplier of high-definition content, was breached on Mar. 5 and that Defiance announced productions of high-def titles on Apr. 5 that presumably would have been sold to Metro under its Matrix agreement; that publicist Janie Liszewski was instructed by the defendants to destroy Metro’s computerized publicity records before leaving the company herself, and that she now does publicity for Defiance; and that Metro contract girl Kelly Erikson breached her contract, which officially ended Aug. 5, according to the suit, but for which there was a claimed one-year renewal provision that Metro could have exercised, by stopping performing for Metro and by entering into performing and directing duties for Defiance.
“The lawsuit is completely frivolous and has no grounds,” Bentley told AVN.com. “Matrix Content is not providing any content to Defiance. Matrix right now is providing for online customers, and the reason why Matrix is not providing any titles to Metro is because Metro has not paid for the titles they have received, and they owe Matrix $56,000.”
“That’s just not true,” countered Metro general counsel Lesley Rich. “There’s been a conspiracy going on for quite some time to defraud Metro; the conspiracy continues and over the next weeks, there’s going to be many other things coming out regarding the tactics of Defiance and the various individuals involved with them. We have substantial evidence supporting our claim, and the actions of Defiance and its principals are egregious and go beyond any shadow of a doubt.”
Added Metro vice president of operations Noel Bloom (who, contrary to reports elsewhere, has not been fired but rather has been promoted), “We’re trying to run our business, and they are definitely interfering with running our business.”
For their part, however, Defiance says this is a smear campaign by Metro, and that no “conspiracy” took place.
“I got involved with Defiance after I left Metro,” Simone said. “I left Metro in February, I came out to California like the end of April, and got Defiance rolling with my partner.”
As for the charges surrounding Erikson, Simone says they stem from a personal grudge. “I was dating Kelly and I guess Kenny [Guarino, Metro’s owner] had an issue with it. Kelly actually has an arbitration case Metro filed against her over her contract, and that’s pending; they haven’t set a date for the arbitration yet. But they’re claiming that in February she stopped performing and breached her contract, and she actually did her last scene for them in April, a week after they gave her her last check, and then they stopped giving her checks, so she stopped working. She hasn’t been performing at all, she hasn’t shot anything for anybody as far as I know.”
To the charges concerningLiszweski, Simone said, “When we first opened Defiance, she wrote a couple of press releases for us; I guess she had just left Metro and she was looking for some work, so I paid her for a couple of press releases, but that was it. We do all our own press in-house now.”
Simone summed up Defiance’s side of the story by saying, “I have all my emails from Kenny and all my correspondence with Kenny for like the last month that I was at Metro. There were commission issues and raises promised that I never got. I actually got a raise once and then they took it back two weeks later, because he was mad over Kelly, I guess. But I have all my correspondence with Kenny showing that my stay at Metro was over, no matter what I did.
"The mood there was not conducive to being happy. So a bunch of people left at the same time, and I just was wondering what I was gonna do to make a living after I left. Obviously, all my contacts and all my relationships for the last two years have been in this industry, so I came into this job and we started working towards Defiance. Nothing was done when I was at Metro.”
AVN.com will update this story as it unfolds.
