Beautiful
The Broke and the Beautiful: Nevin Shapiro Edition
This week on The Broke and the Beautiful, former University of Miami booster Nevin Shapiro’s bankruptcy trustee is racking up the recoveries. Also, rapper Young Buck might face bankruptcy liquidation, and B.B. King’s Blues Club is still grappling with its Las Vegas landlord.
- Reuters
- University of Miami head coach Al Golden leads his team onto the field for a September football game.
Bankruptcy trustee Joel Tabas has so far recovered about $ 19 million for victims of Ponzi-scheme operator Nevin Shapiro. According to the Miami Herald, the former University of Miami booster’s lawyers haven’t paid up, though. Tabas has sued lawyers Guy Lewis and Michael Tein for $ 912,536, seeking to recover value from a Riviera yacht Shapiro sold the lawyers to pay off legal bills (presumably washing it clean after entertaining Hurricanes football players with prostitutes).
- EPA/Los Angeles Dodgers
A bankruptcy judge swung a new order at the Los Angeles Dodgers this week, Bloomberg reported. Judge Kevin Gross of the Wilmington, Del., bankruptcy court told the baseball team to turn over court papers used by Thomas Schieffer, whom Major League Baseball tapped to oversee operations in April but who left after the Dodgers filed for bankruptcy. Schieffer—a former president of the Texas Rangers—had put in some extra phone lines and a separate computer server at Dodger stadium and brought in a filing cabinet so MLB documents could “at all times be kept away” from team officials and owner Frank McCourt, Bloomberg noted.
In other Dodgers news, injured San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow left the hospital this week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. But Stow, who suffered a brain injury in March resulting from an assault he suffered at Dodger Stadium on Opening Day, still has a way to go in his recovery. According to the paper, Stow’s family said he can’t yet walk and is still on strong medications. (Bankruptcy Beat noted in July that Stow may be owed up to $ 30 million by the Dodgers, which would make him the struggling team’s biggest creditor.)
Young Buck’s bankruptcy trustee says the rapper may be facing Chapter 7 liquidation. As Bankruptcy Beat noted, Jeanne Burton has been working since the beginning of the year to get the former 50 Cent protégé on a path out of Chapter 11. But 50 Cent his and G-Unit Records have opposed the bankruptcy plan, filed in June, and 50 Cent and Young Buck haven’t been able to work out a recording agreement with the record label. “At this time, because no agreement has been reached with G-Unit and Curtis Jackson regarding either assumption or rejection for the recording agreement and/or the publishing agreement, the first amended plan cannot be confirmed,” Burton said in court papers. Burton also said some of Young Buck’s money has been misappropriated, further hurting the rapper’s ability to make his way out of bankruptcy.
- Associated Press
- B.B. King
B.B. King’s Blues Club may be singing the “3 O’Clock Blues” a little while longer. As Vegas Inc. reported, the Las Vegas club’s lawyers asked the bankruptcy court to approve its lease continuation with the Mirage but is still grappling with owner MGM Resorts International. But last week, the Mirage opposed the plan to keep operating under the disputed lease, noting that it served the club with eviction papers right before its operator, Beale Street Blues Co. Las Vegas LLC, filed for bankruptcy in February.
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The Broke and the Beautiful: ‘L.A. Law’ Edition
This week on The Broke and the Beautiful, a company formerly headed by “L.A. Law” actor Corbin Bernsen took its drama to bankruptcy court, and the Los Angeles Dodgers were sued by Fox Sports over broadcasting rights. Also, MLB threatened to toss the team from the league if owner Frank McCourt can’t step up to the plate.
- Associated Press
- Corbin Bernsen speaks during a news conference kicking off filming of “25 Hill” in April 2010.
Corbin Bernsen may have been at the center of legal drama on “L.A. Law,” but he’s trying to stay out of the courtroom these days. In an interview with Bankruptcy Beat, Bernsen said he wasn’t happy when Public Media Works, a company he led as recently as 2008, was caught in the spotlight after it filed for bankruptcy protection. “I have zero to do with the company,” said Bernsen, who now is working to create “faith and family films” with his new company, Home Theater Films. Public Media noted in a press release Monday that its “inability to identify new sources of liquidity necessary to redeploy and market its kiosks” led it to file for Chapter 11.
A bankruptcy judge may well be a girl’s best friend this week. According to the Associated Press, a Florida bankruptcy judge ruled that images and copyright from Marilyn Monroe’s first photo shoot will be auctioned to help repay creditors of photographer Joseph Jasgur. (Jasgur isn’t the only Monroe photographer to have hit financial troubles, either—Bankruptcy Beat reported in June on the bankruptcy of the estate of Sam Shaw, who captured Monroe’s iconic moment standing over a subway grate.)
- Reuters
“Desperate Housewives” actress Eva Longoria’s Beso LLC is back in the news. As Vegas Inc. reported, Judge Mike Nakagawa of the Las Vegas bankruptcy court reminded his audience that the embattled nightclub is actually controlled by a shopping mall after an attorney for an angry investor opposed a buyout deal from Landry’s Restaurants Inc. of Houston. Crystals, which is part of the CityCenter on the Las Vegas Strip, is hoping the celebrity status of Longoria (who’s recently been noted as one of television’s highest-paid actresses) brings business to Beso and the mall.
- Associated Press
- Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt
The Los Angeles Dodgers may be done playing baseball until 2012, but they’re still at bat in bankruptcy court. Bankruptcy Beat reported that Major League Baseball could strike the team from its lineup if the league can’t make peace with owner Frank McCourt. Also, as Daily Bankruptcy Review reported, Fox Sports sued the team to try to stop it from selling future broadcast rights to help repay creditors. Fox, which is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal, says the Dodgers don’t have the right to walk off from an exclusive negotiating period between the two.
- Getty Images
A federal judge Tuesday said he’d allow Bernard Madoff’s bankruptcy trustee to seek no more than $ 386 million from the New York Mets’ owners, according to WSJ, a big sigh of relief for a pair who could have been on the hook for $ 1 billion. And lawyers familiar with the case say the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff limits the scope of what trustee Irving Picard can legally seize in Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme. Helen Davis Chaitman, a lawyer representing former Madoff customers being sued by Picard, said the trustee would end up getting “a lot less money.”