The Shadowrun Situation

Centurion13 · Post by **Centurion13** » Tue May 25, 2010 5:08 pm

BeeRockxs wrote:It's also nice to see who first goes down to a personal, insulting level.

Maybe you should go back to the start of this thread and read again. It's hardly the first, but it's certainly the most succinct.

And, I might add, the most satisfying.

This reminds me of Bill Clinton when he said 'Well, that depends on what your definition of the word 'is' is."

What's the matter, Bee? Does it disturb you when a man takes the metaphorical gloves off?

It should.

This place has an ignore button, something I have never seen before. I think I will use it. It may save my account.

Keep up the good work, Frank.

Cent13

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue May 25, 2010 5:11 pm

If you check the document in question you'll see that first, IMRP LLC is mentioned as a client. Then immediately, Loren Coleman and his wife are mentioned as the members of said LLC.

There is no context before that which would point at them being the members he spoke to, or otherwise being specified. There is no "I spoke with two members", or anything else the "the" could grammatically relate to. The next sentence also singles out Mr. Coleman as the one who spoke with the lawyer. Logically, "the members" there means "all the members".

If that was meant is another question, but there's no logical way to mistake it as not meaning "all the members".

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue May 25, 2010 5:14 pm

I do admit though that I have not much of an understanding of bankruptcy law in the state of Washington, or the US.

I do have quite the understanding of how such a process would have progressed in Switzerland though, and from what I can tell I'd hate to be a creditor in the US, as opposed to in Switzerland. We move such proceedings rather fast, and have special legal means to secure assets and prevent people from misaligning funds.

Panzerfaust 150 · Post by **Panzerfaust 150** » Tue May 25, 2010 5:18 pm

What concerns me is this..every time we turn around, the layers of the onion keep getting peeled back and we find MORE wrong here. I know nobody in IMR/CGL is going to file criminal charges, but could the plaintiffs in the civil case do so? Or, could facts come out in the civil matter that would force the case to be referred to the criminal courts? And what of the IRS? I mean with the information Mrs. Hardy (if I got her name wrong, I apologize) presented, and the underreporting of convention sales to Topps? (Did they also report these numbers to the IRS? If so, that's tax evasion, IIRC), where in the world are they?

Centurion13 · Post by **Centurion13** » Tue May 25, 2010 5:25 pm

Panzerfaust 150 wrote:What concerns me is this..every time we turn around, the layers of the onion keep getting peeled back and we find MORE wrong here. I know nobody in IMR/CGL is going to file criminal charges, but could the plaintiffs in the civil case do so? Or, could facts come out in the civil matter that would force the case to be referred to the criminal courts? And what of the IRS? I mean with the information Mrs. Hardy (if I got her name wrong, I apologize) presented, and the underreporting of convention sales to Topps? (Did they also report these numbers to the IRS? If so, that's tax evasion, IIRC), where in the world are they?

I've been wondering that myself. Any insights from your source, Frank? Does anyone else know what should, by rights, develop from the most strongly verified events so far as regards the tax man?

Taharqa · Post by **Taharqa** » Tue May 25, 2010 6:49 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Taharqa, you are a concern troll. You claim to share our passion for truth and justice, but you really obviously don't.
-Username17

Admittedly a bit of a non-sequitur, but is a concern troll what you get when you feed a care bear after midnight? My knowledge of cryptozoology is a little lacking, although I suppose we could ask the other Loren Coleman.

Back on topic, I don't share your passion for truth and justice. My curiousity in figuring out exactly what is going on stems from my own self interest in wanting to know what is going to happen with Battletech, because I am quite frankly addicted to the hobby. I will be quite frank that I am hoping that IMR/CGL will survive the current problems, because I like what they have done so far with the license in terms of the Battletech universe and Battletech products and I would like to see it continue. So I am a pragmatist. I should note that "surviving" in my view means retaining the license, paying off freelancers and others that are owed money, and in general making amends for what I think most everyone agrees was a Colossal Fuck Up. I have actually spent a good deal of time (more than healthy, probably) being pissed at IMR/CGL in general, and Loren Coleman, in particular for endangering a good thing, although I lack the information necessary to determine whether the Colossal Fuck Up was a result of gross business incompetence or malfeasance. If they lose the license, I will probably say something to the effect of "way to fuck it up, guys" and cross my fingers that the license gets transferred to somebody who will do right by it. But, I would rather it not come to that for the pragmatic, self-interested reasons I just enumerated.

As for Truth and Justice, who could argue that those are good things in the abstract? But the devil is in the details. You know what bothers me more than the thievery and fraud that you have alleged? You know what really gets my blood boiling? The "justice" of the mob. The one overriding fact about mob justice is that it doesn't spend a lot of time discriminating between the innocent and the guilty, and it sure doesn't spend a lot of time bothering about finer points, like "evidence." I think the mob mentality of the posters here will be pretty evident to any outside poster that can actually stomach reading through it all. The torrent of anger that was unleashed by several posters in response to my initial post around page 7 or so is very telling: "we are angry, we need to hit somebody or something, and we can't get Coleman, so lets go ahead and get you!" In my view its pretty sickening, and you Frank are the inciter.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 25, 2010 7:10 pm

Centurion13 wrote:
Panzerfaust 150 wrote:What concerns me is this..every time we turn around, the layers of the onion keep getting peeled back and we find MORE wrong here. I know nobody in IMR/CGL is going to file criminal charges, but could the plaintiffs in the civil case do so? Or, could facts come out in the civil matter that would force the case to be referred to the criminal courts? And what of the IRS? I mean with the information Mrs. Hardy (if I got her name wrong, I apologize) presented, and the underreporting of convention sales to Topps? (Did they also report these numbers to the IRS? If so, that's tax evasion, IIRC), where in the world are they?
I've been wondering that myself. Any insights from your source, Frank? Does anyone else know what should, by rights, develop from the most strongly verified events so far as regards the tax man?

Sources. And no, they don't all agree, but there is a number of things I think I can verify.

While Loren Coleman got audited a couple years back by the IRS, this was Loren Coleman the Cryptozoologist, not the head of IMR. At the time it seemed pretty damn random, but who knows? Maybe it was another in the long list of mistaken identities (they've even had their books attributed to each other by distributors). So basically: the IRS hasn't given IMR the fish eye yet.

Currently, there are two audits going on. One of them is an internal one by Catalyst, run by Amy. It is... behind schedule. And by behind schedule, I mean that though they took down all the current contact information for the freelancers, they have not actually used that contact information to confirm anything. I gave them my contact info, and the mailbox is still mysteriously empty. The other audit is being done by Topps. And that one is behind schedule too. But the exciting thing about that one, is that Loren Coleman has been defrauding them for years. He has been underreporting sales. So if they hold up the numbers Loren gave them, and the numbers that distributors gave him side by side, they won't compare at all.

Loren's lawyer just said in court that the company makes $1.2 million dollars in sales. But they said in their own memo internally that they made half again that much money last year. They had a little party about it.

The fact is, Loren can't have paid his taxes properly, because he hasn't been tracking his income properly and he hasn't been giving the same set of numbers to any two people in the situation you care to name.

-Username17

crizh · Post by **crizh** » Tue May 25, 2010 7:33 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
The fact is, Loren can't have paid his taxes properly, because he hasn't been tracking his income properly and he hasn't been giving the same set of numbers to any two people in the situation you care to name.

-Username17

Was he ever a Taxi driver by any chance?

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Tue May 25, 2010 7:58 pm

Panzerfaust 150 wrote:I know nobody in IMR/CGL is going to file criminal charges, but could the plaintiffs in the civil case do so? Or, could facts come out in the civil matter that would force the case to be referred to the criminal courts?

It is illegal to perjure yourself, even in civil cases. So a civil suit could bring out someone lying under oath, which is a criminal offense.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue May 25, 2010 10:03 pm

The most kind thing you could say about the Colemans at this point is that they're colossal fuck-ups who don't remember to file their paperwork.

That is the kind, considerate version.

-Crissa

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Tue May 25, 2010 10:09 pm

Taharqa wrote:The torrent of anger that was unleashed by several posters in response to my initial post around page 7 or so is very telling

I went and looked at page 7, and I don't see anyone else doing more than ignoring you there.

So, pics or it didn't happen.

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Tue May 25, 2010 11:14 pm

mean_liar wrote:
Panzerfaust 150 wrote:I know nobody in IMR/CGL is going to file criminal charges, but could the plaintiffs in the civil case do so? Or, could facts come out in the civil matter that would force the case to be referred to the criminal courts?
It is illegal to perjure yourself, even in civil cases. So a civil suit could bring out someone lying under oath, which is a criminal offense.

That's true, but so what? For there to be a criminal prosecution, the prosecuting attorney has to care at all. Civil victims can request that a criminal investigation be opened, in which case they become the complaining witness. They're called the complaining witness because they're just witnesses, and have no control over the criminal case whatsoever.

So if no one in the government cares about all this, there's just not going to be any criminal charges. Civilians can't "file criminal charges", cases can't be "forced" into the criminal courts. So as much as I'd like to see Loren get the book thrown at him, I'm not holding my breath; you probably shouldn't either.

Taharqa · Post by **Taharqa** » Tue May 25, 2010 11:28 pm

mean_liar wrote:
Panzerfaust 150 wrote:I know nobody in IMR/CGL is going to file criminal charges, but could the plaintiffs in the civil case do so? Or, could facts come out in the civil matter that would force the case to be referred to the criminal courts?
It is illegal to perjure yourself, even in civil cases. So a civil suit could bring out someone lying under oath, which is a criminal offense.

Are you suggesting someone has perjured themselves, or is this just hypothetical?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 25, 2010 11:51 pm

crizh wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:
The fact is, Loren can't have paid his taxes properly, because he hasn't been tracking his income properly and he hasn't been giving the same set of numbers to any two people in the situation you care to name.

-Username17
Was he ever a Taxi driver by any chance?

??
Explain please, i don't think i got that one . .

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue May 25, 2010 11:58 pm

Well, generally judges take a dim view of perjury, and can initiate a criminal investigation. All we know is A doesn't match B, and we're waiting for the reason why.

Taxi drivers have a set of logs from their meter as well as one from operating the vehicle... You'll find the same situation with any sort of delivery driver or someone who gets a portion of their income via tips.

-Crissa

crizh · Post by **crizh** » Wed May 26, 2010 12:06 am

Stahlseele wrote:
crizh wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:
The fact is, Loren can't have paid his taxes properly, because he hasn't been tracking his income properly and he hasn't been giving the same set of numbers to any two people in the situation you care to name.

-Username17
Was he ever a Taxi driver by any chance?
??
Explain please, i don't think i got that one . .

You've never met a group so disingenuous about the true value of their earnings. They lie to each other, their spouses, the tax man and probably themselves....

On the subject of logs, that might be true in some jurisdictions but even then falsification is likely endemic.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed May 26, 2010 1:42 am

Even if you do it right, you end up with more than one number. I just estimated my tips for tax purposes; the time in counting pennies was a pain.

-Crissa

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed May 26, 2010 3:37 am

Can we all just refer to the fact that Kid Chamelon just said that a number of the owners are not members of the LLC - thus it is entirely plausible that the Colemans are the only members of the LLC.

KC is one of the not owner, owners in questions.

We cannot know 100%, but it is very probable at this time that the lawyers statement was correct and that the Colemans are the only formal members of the LLC.

End of discussion.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed May 26, 2010 6:32 am

How do you become an owner "informally"?

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed May 26, 2010 6:47 am

Fucked if I know.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed May 26, 2010 6:55 am

As far as I can tell, it means that Loren Coleman sold people part of the company, but never actually filed any paperwork that they had done so.

So they have Loren's "promise" to treat them as owners, but no legal recognition as owners.

-Username17

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Wed May 26, 2010 7:17 am

FrankTrollman wrote:So they have Loren's "promise" to treat them as owners, but no legal recognition as owners.

How many people did Loren Coleman "promise" to make partial owners of the company in exchange for investment capital? Did any of them receive any money back, much less the income that they should have drawn from being fully vested members of the L.L.C.? What do you think the odds are that a judge will order a formal criminal investigation after all is said and done?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed May 26, 2010 7:52 am

Ganbare Gincun wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:So they have Loren's "promise" to treat them as owners, but no legal recognition as owners.
How many people did Loren Coleman "promise" to make partial owners of the company in exchange for investment capital? Did any of them receive any money back, much less the income that they should have drawn from being fully vested members of the L.L.C.? What do you think the odds are that a judge will order a formal criminal investigation after all is said and done?

1. At least 14.
2. Some of them have been paid moneys for being owners.
3. Since this money was based on falsely reported earnings, I don't think anyone has ever received the amount of money they would be owed, but you'd have to check each person's secret checks against the "real" secret earnings, which I don't know if Loren even ever recorded. So it's possible that someone like Randall may have gotten a full share at some point.
4. The judge in the bankruptcy case is retiring soon, so very unlikely.

The thing is: IMR does not have the money to print books. They are spamming everything they have into e-book formation to extract all the money they can before the curtain falls. Even if they get the extension until GenCon they are asking for (which they might get in the absence of a completed audit or a finished court case), IMR really is massively behind on their bills.

The rewrites they have going of parts of 6WA are at times face palm inducing (the 6th world Unionists are referred to as Ulster Protestants, even though the Catholic/Protestant divide is meaningless in the Tir na nOg Wheels and Paths theocracy - the Unionists in the 6th world are Druids); but it doesn't really look like they have much intention of making any physical books out of them.

The fight is not really over whether the company collapses, but when it collapses, and who gets what amount of money while it does.

-Username17

BeeRockxs · Post by **BeeRockxs** » Wed May 26, 2010 8:57 am

If IMR does not have the money to print new books, why are new print books coming out, like the BattleTech Historicals: Operation Klondike, which had a street day of a few days ago?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed May 26, 2010 9:04 am

BeeRockxs wrote:If IMR does not have the money to print new books, why are new print books coming out, like the BattleTech Historicals: Operation Klondike, which had a street day of a few days ago?

Are you referring to the books that were printed in March, but then got put on hold because the printer's bill was late that they didn't get out of lockdown until May?

Those aren't new books. They are months old, and cash flow problems have prevented them from being shipped. Hell, Operation Klondike was from February. It's better news than the book continuing to sit in a box unable to be shipped, but it's not good news by any means.

-Username17