The Shadowrun Situation

[Kaelik]

Why won't criminal charges be filed? If someone steals $850,000.00 then criminal charges are generally filed.

I'm hanging my hat on the fact that if someone steals 850k, then the District Attorney would be interested.

Leaving us with two options.

The District Attorney isn't interested, ergo, no theft.

The District Attorney is interested and the investigation is ongoing.

...

When I see a conviction, I'll label someone a thief. That's justice.

The District Attorney can only become involved if he has a victim.

Since one of the primary victims, Randall Bills, has explicitly stated:

A) Loren Coleman took a bunch of company money.

B) He totally forgives him and will not in any way seek any retribution.

All Randall Bills has to do to avoid testifying against Coleman is to declare that he retroactively gave the money to him, and that's something he would apparently do.

Now, Randall Bills is not by any means the sum total of the people that Coleman stole from, but individual freealncers who have not even been paid for their work timely or in full or sometimes at all over the last couple years are in no position to hire lawyers to bring up civil failure to honor contract cases.

So yes, it is very possible to say without a shadow of a doubt that Coleman stole money, without him being convicted. One example would be if he admitted to stealing money, which, oh yeah, he totally did in a press release.

[Jay Levine]

This is an honest question, so bear with me.

Why is such a big deal made out of NDA's in the Gaming Industry?

From my experience, they aren't much of a big deal in other parts of the entertainment industry.

Was there some kind of incident in the past that made them important in Gaming?

Clutch

They are a fairly big deal in other parts of the entertainment industry. Mostly just in the production/pre-release stage, when publicity is tightly controlled. After a movie, video game, whatever comes out, the people involved in making it have more freedom to talk about the process.

And honestly, NDAs were never a terribly big deal while I wrote for Shadowrun. They existed, but it's not like the freelancers went around posting spoilers about upcoming plots regularly. It's just become a bigger deal right now, with everything else going on.

[Kaelik]

This is an honest question, so bear with me.

Why is such a big deal made out of NDA's in the Gaming Industry?

From my experience, they aren't much of a big deal in other parts of the entertainment industry.

Was there some kind of incident in the past that made them important in Gaming?

If you leak the contents of a movie, you might ruin some of the plot. Oh well.

If you leak the mechanics of the game, they can just play the whole game themselves without ever giving you a cent.

Since it's all words, you can actually "leak" something so that it basically just as bad for the company as movie piracy.

[Crissa]

NDAs stop competing products from gaining an edge on the production. Also, there's lots of little slip-ups and drama which can sink the resulting product which are normal in any organization. Lastly, it's an additional safeguard and legality holding in people from outright stealing stuff from the cutting room floor or the whole production - the penalties are much quicker than copyright law.

-Crissa

[TheFlatline]

No, criminal charges won't be filed, but that doesn't mean theft didn't happen.

Why won't criminal charges be filed? If someone steals $850,000.00 then criminal charges are generally filed.

I'm hanging my hat on the fact that if someone steals 850k, then the District Attorney would be interested.

Leaving us with two options.

The District Attorney isn't interested, ergo, no theft.

The District Attorney is interested and the investigation is ongoing.

But I'm NOT going to be a part of some internet lynch mob, which is more and more what this is looking like.

Some folks around here have made it abunduntly clear that they have made every potentially interested party aware of the situation. I would assume that means law enforcement at the Local, State, and Federal level.

When I see a conviction, I'll label someone a thief. That's justice.

Clutch

Okay, here's the thing. There are two groups of "victims" in this situation. One group is the other owners of IMR, from whom the Colemans took money from. The other is the federal government for tax reasons.

It takes *years* for taxes to catch up to you, and as far as the owners are concerned, someone has to feel offended enough to report the crime, and have evidence that a crime was committed.

It's already been stated that even though what the Colemans did was wrong, they are forgiven, and no further action will be pursued.

Why do you think that just because there is no prosecution there was no crime? I could go kill a bum on the streets and just because I never get charged doesn't mean I didn't commit murder.

You're sticking to an extremely narrow viewpoint of what constitutes a crime. You're basically saying "it's only a crime if you get caught, otherwise there never was a crime". Which is bullshit.

[Crissa]

Well, the legal version of theft is that something of value was taken without permission.

As the Colemans had permission, it wasn't exactly theft.

However, as I said, legal vs 'reasonable person' are very different.

I think a reasonable person would say that if you took work in exchange for money - and then didn't pay back that money, it would be theft. But the legal system is more arcane than that.

Either way, there are witnesses declaring that the Colemans not only took money for non-company reasons, they instructed employees to violate contracts and forge accounting documents to cover up those actions.

-Crissa

[Kithkanan]

One example would be if he admitted to stealing money, which, oh yeah, he totally did in a press release.

Cool! Where's the Coleman press release?

[Kaelik]

One example would be if he admitted to stealing money, which, oh yeah, he totally did in a press release.

Cool! Where's the Coleman press release?

Well, technically, it's a "Catalyst" press release, probably written by Randall Bill. But I think it's fair to say that Coleman signed off on it.

[duo31]

LLC took money from IMR is the allegation.
IMR is LLC and his wife per their lawyer.
Can you steal from yourself? Legally?

IMR owes Topps royalties, but they didn't take property from Topps directly.
Therefore they didn't steal from Topps.

IMR's incorporation paperwork doesn't list any owners other than the Colemans, therefore they couldn't have stolen from the other owners / Bills cuz they aren't legally owners. The other owners may (though the shoddy paperwork speaks otherwise) have contracts that say i give you (IMR) money and you give me ('owner') a return. So massive breach of contract is very likely but 'theft' not so much. Ergo no DA involvement.

As to the TaxMan, tax evasion is criminally punishable, but you have to prove systematic evasion. being a colossal fuckwit is usually enough to avoid jail, but not repossession and garnishment.

Ethically and Legally are two different spheres that just happen to occasionally intersect. which is a pity, really.

[TheFlatline]

LLC took money from IMR is the allegation.
IMR is LLC and his wife per their lawyer.
Can you steal from yourself? Legally?

Sort of. In a corporation absolutely you can steal from yourself, in an LLC it's a little murkier, because it uses pass-through taxation. If there's a partnership you absolutely can "steal from yourself" because the business isn't "all you".

IMR owes Topps royalties, but they didn't take property from Topps directly.
Therefore they didn't steal from Topps.

Yes they did steal. They took cash which legally belonged to Topps and held onto it. Maybe fraud would be a better term here, but still, that's not exactly worlds better than "theft".

IMR's incorporation paperwork doesn't list any owners other than the Colemans, therefore they couldn't have stolen from the other owners / Bills cuz they aren't legally owners.

Without seeing pertinent documentation, we don't know this for sure. The publicly available documentation lists governing owners. You can have silent owners inside that LLC and they *might* not be listed. You'd need a corporate lawyer with knowledge of Washington corporate law to determine if the information we have is complete or not.

Also, to nitpick, if IMR *was* a corporation, there could easily be stockholders not listed. It's an LLC though, which means it's a partnership with certain protections extended that normally cover a corporation.

[kzt]

I actually doubt that what the Colemans did will even enter into the bankruptcy proceedings. All the claimants need to do is show that there isn't money there or there is a reluctance to pay. Not how the company got to that point.

Discussions I've seen on how Chapter 7 works suggest that criminal activity and serious "accounting irregularities" are about the only reasons the court will appoint a trustee to manage a business. So I'm not so sure about that.

[Crissa]

Generally you get a trustee in cases where the governing owners are incapacitated (like dead, arrested, etc) or there are accounting difficulties (fraud, money missing, owing large amounts to the feds, or the company is predicted to be profitable but for some reason it is bankrupt). The latter item is how the government takes over big corporations, and makes a profit: See Consolidated Rail for an example.

It happens to smaller ones all the time. But LLCs are one of the favored ways for con artists to create shell companies, then hide the company's assets before making it go bankrupt. It's a big problem in the construction industry.

I've been reading and watching alot of home shows since I spent this last year buying a home. Turns out it's alot cheaper to build a house than they say. But at the same time... There's lots of scammers out there, tons of stories about it.

-Crissa

[Clutch9800]

I could go kill a bum on the streets and just because I never get charged doesn't mean I didn't commit murder.

You're sticking to an extremely narrow viewpoint of what constitutes a crime. You're basically saying "it's only a crime if you get caught, otherwise there never was a crime". Which is bullshit.

I'm not so sure I'm the one sticking to a narrow viewpoint.

You're analogy is way, way off from the situation at hand. Here's a way to make it a little closer to what we have:

If you kill a bum in the street and everybody finds out about it to the point where there are people that you barely know who live in the Czech Republic howling for your prosecution and you don't get prosecuted.....then there's probably a reason why.

I'm not saying that if you commit a crime and never get caught then there was no crime. I'm saying that if you do something that some people may think is a crime, and lots of people know about it, but you are never charged with a crime, then it probably wasn't a crime.

What LLC did is out there. Everybody knows about it. If it's criminal, indict him.

Clutch

[A Man In Black]

Hey guys, I'm going to ignore the point of your posts, but instead ramble about a poorly-thought-out analogy one person used!

Why are people feeding the troll?

[Clutch9800]

Hey guys, I'm going to ignore the point of your posts, but instead ramble about a poorly-thought-out analogy one person used!

Kiss my ass.

My points are salient. If they make you uncomfortable, feel free to press that ignore button.

Clutch

[Kithkanan]

One example would be if he admitted to stealing money, which, oh yeah, he totally did in a press release.

Cool! Where's the Coleman press release?

Well, technically, it's a "Catalyst" press release, probably written by Randall Bill. But I think it's fair to say that Coleman signed off on it.

So "totally did" in this case refers to a reference to an unnamed owner written by somebody else that was probably signed off by Coleman? Not what I was hoping for.

[Kaelik]

So "totally did" in this case refers to a reference to an unnamed owner written by somebody else that was probably signed off by Coleman? Not what I was hoping for.

So do you think it was a different owner besides Coleman who "comingled" funds?

Do you think that Coleman didn't agree to that press release?

Or are you just seizing on to the tiniest crack of wiggle room so you can pretend to be something besides a troll for a couple seconds?

[Fuchs]

Some people always use "presumed innocent until found guilty" for Coleman and his cronies, but never assume the same for the oh-so-evil "conspirators" and their "tool" Frank Trollmann.

Says a lot about them, really.

[Fuchs]

On another tangent, over here in Switzerland, theft is defined as (roughly translated) taking something belonging to someone else, and acting as if it was one's property, to make a profit for oneself or someone else.

The something needs to be something tangible - withdrawing from a bank account without authorization would not be theft here, but another crime - and transportable.

The US may have different definitions.

[The Vigilante]

I am dangerously retarded, and I refuse to use my faculty of judgment until the courts tells me what to think.
Clutch

Fixed.

stupid spelling mistake

[mean_liar]

Don't we keep a barrel around for stuff like this?

[RobbyPants]

There's always the ignore button until you can find the barrel.

[Clutch9800]

Well then,

Let us agree to disagree.

A guy is sitting on his couch and hears a knock on the door. He goes to his door and there is this little snail sitting on his porch. He picks the snail up and throws it as far as he can. Three years later, same guy, same couch. He hears a knock on his door. He goes to the door and sees the same little snail. The snail says; "What the fuck was that all about?!?"

God damn the lot of you.

Clutch

[knasser]

If you kill a bum in the street and everybody finds out about it to the point where there are people that you barely know who live in the Czech Republic howling for your prosecution and you don't get prosecuted.....then there's probably a reason why.

Tony Blair in the UK knowingly lied to Parliament and started a war that was illegal, everyone knows this, we have evidence of it, and we're still trying to actually get that one as far as an actual trial.

I'm sure we can think of cases in the USA where there has been widespread knowledge of a crime but no result. If the analogy doesn't fit, you must aquit, I say.

K.

[Taharqa]

Some people always use "presumed innocent until found guilty" for Coleman and his cronies, but never assume the same for the oh-so-evil "conspirators" and their "tool" Frank Trollmann.

Says a lot about them, really.

If you stopped to think about it, you would realize it says a lot about you as well Fuchs because you clearly prefer the opposite: presume Coleman and cronies are guilty until proven innocent and the opposite for Frank Trollman and crew. It hardly makes you seem like the bigger man.

Beyond that, your statement makes no sense. I don't think Frank is guilty until proven innocent because Frank has not been accused of anything, with the exception of being an ass, perhaps. If Frank were accused of something criminal, I would likewise presume his innocence until proven guilty.