Enters
Actor Armand Assante Enters Bankruptcy
- Reuters
- Armand Assante attends Kazakhstan Fashion Week in October 2010.
Rugged actor Armand Assante, who often plays a tough guy on film, has bowed to bankruptcy court—this time as a victim of alleged mortgage fraud that’s entangled his Hudson Valley mansion.
Assante, a born-and-raised New Yorker who’s been nominated for several Golden Globe awards, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Poughkeepsie—a court not far from his 145-acre horse farm that was scheduled to be sold at an upcoming foreclosure auction. The filing halts that sale until a bankruptcy judge can look over the case.
Assante’s attorney, Josh Denbeaux, said the actor was busy filming in Romania and Bulgaria during 2005 when one of his financial advisers was working on a mortgage loan for his 7,000 square foot home—a move to put him on more solid financial footing.
At the closing table, the mortgage company switched the loan’s legal fine print to include in the deal several wooded parcels of land that Assante owned nearby. The deal put him on the hook for a $ 1.5 million mortgage on terms he couldn’t afford.
“Mr. Assante, like nearly all others working in the entertainment industry, suffered a significant and sustained decrease in his income in the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,” Assante’s attorneys said of the foreclosure case, filed in Orange County, N.Y.
“This is one of the most predatory loans and one of the most ugly lending practices I’ve seen,” Denbeaux told Bankruptcy Beat, noting that he’s examined hundreds of foreclosure cases.
Assante’s bankruptcy petition says he owed $ 12,138 to the Screen Actors’ Guild’s credit union, based in Burbank, Calif. It also said that he owes $ 36,574 for unpaid taxes for 2006, 2007 and 2009.
The Irish-Italian actor, who turned 62 on Tuesday, has frequently played intimidating roles like crime kingpin John Gotti in a television miniseries and a drug baron in the 1990 movie “Q & A.” Viewers saw him alongside Sylvester Stallone in futuristic comic book flick “Judge Dredd,” Demi Moore’s “Striptease” and crime film “American Gangster.”
The Daily Docket: Graceway Enters Bankruptcy
Graceway Pharmaceuticals LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday, one day after announcing its plans to seek a sale of its assets to Galderma S.A. Read the Daily Bankruptcy Review article here.
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(The Daily Bankruptcy Review and DBR Small Cap are daily newsletters with comprehensive coverage and analysis of emerging and in-progress insolvencies and turnarounds. For a two-week trial to DBR, click here. For DBR SC, click here.)
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Law professor Stephen Lubben discusses Rakoff’s decision via Credit Slips, suggesting that Congress needs to revisit the safe harbors that exempt many financial dealings from the Bankruptcy Code.
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L.A. Law Star’s Ex-Company Enters Bankruptcy
- AP Photo/Akron Beacon Journal, Karen Schiely
- In this Nov. 20, 2009, photo, Corbin Bernsen reacts after crossing the finish line at Derby Downs in Akron, Ohio.
A publicly traded movie production company turned DVD renter once led by “L.A. Law” actor Corbin Bernsen has filed for bankruptcy in California.
The company, Public Media Works, said its failed effort to jump into the movie-rental kiosk business forced to it file for Chapter 11 protection last week in Riverside, Calif.
That business plan was a marked departure from its previous role as a production company for films Bernsen directed, including “Donna On Demand” and “Car Pool Guy.”
Best known as Arnie Becker in the iconic 1980s law-firm drama, Bernsen was formerly the chief executive of Public Media and as recently as September 2010 held stock in the company and served as a consultant, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.
Bernsen, who now plays Henry Spencer in the USA Network series “Psych,” stepped away from the top leadership role in 2008 after he sold a portion of the company, SEC filings said.
A representative of Bernsen’s current production company, Team Cherokee Productions, declined to comment when reached Tuesday. Bernsen wasn’t made available.
Public Media moved its focus to operating DVD rental kiosks under the “Spot Rentals” name after it acquired Entertainment Xpress Inc. last year. While the company maintained an ownership interest in several film and television projects, it no longer expected to generate revenue from the properties, Public Media said in its most recent annual report.
Public Media says it’s been unable to find a new way to deploy the kiosks after scraping the movie rental model. Current CEO Martin W. Greenwald said the company intends to reorganize and filed for Chapter 11 in order to seek out bankruptcy financing.
“It has been very challenging,” Mr. Greenwald said in the statement. “Our goal is to emerge from Chapter 11 as soon as possible. The company is working on securing a debtor in possession loan to allow it to maintain operations at a minimal level.”
The company didn’t immediately respond Tuesday to calls seeking additional comment.
UPDATE: In an interview with Bankruptcy Beat, Bernsen said he is no longer involved with Public Media’s day-to-day operations. Bernsen said that he was Public Media’s CEO and still has stock in the company but hasn’t been involved “for years.”
“They haven’t returned my calls in six months,” Bernsen said. “I left and they wanted to do something else.”