Paramount Threatened with Prosecution Over Conspiracy

Responding to Paramount's allegations of a financial conspiracy, Hollywood power lawyer Marty Singer has a warning for investors: "If co-financiers want to make deals with Paramount, this is what is going to happen."

Marty Singer, the attorney representing Content Partners in a huge lawsuit against Paramount over alleged profit participation cheating, tells The Hollywood Reporter that he will be looking to file malicious prosecution claims against Paramount and its attorneys.

On Thursday, as THR reported earlier, Paramount filed counterclaims in a three-year-old lawsuit that alleged that JPMorgan colluded with an asset management company to interfere with the studio's rights in a series of film-financing transactions. The court papers say that JPMorgan provided insurance-backed financing for a slate of late 1990s film and after realizing that the loans weren't risk-free, came to a secret arrangement with Content Partners.

"In last two months, we've uncovered approximately $100 million that hasn't been reported," he says. "In response, they filed this absurd, ridiculous cross-complaint that we believe will subject Paramount and its attorneys to malicious prosecution."

Singer says he's been practicing law for 35 years. "This is the most absurd thing I've ever seen," he says.

He says that Paramount has known about the transaction between JPMorgan and Content Partners for years. "We have documentation," says the attorney, adding that Content Partners was a competitor when Paramount engaged in negotiations to buy back financial participation on hit films like The Truman Show, Face/Off and Runaway Bride. The suggestion of a conspiracy is an "absolute lie," says Singer.\
He says that even if Paramount is correct with its new allegations, the studio won't be able to recover money, as the funds would then be due to JPMorgan.

"This is chutzpah," says Singer. "It would be like someone robbing a bank and then suing the victim."

Not stopping there, Singer issued a warning to any financier who would do business with Paramount.

"I think for co-investors, this is an important wake-up call.

Read  the third amended complaint... http://www.scribd.com/doc/146354943/Content-Partners-3rd-Amended-Complaint

Read More... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/paramount-threatened-malicious-prosecution-conspiracy-564762

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Marty Singer Sending Legal Threats, California Appeals Court Singer Crossed the Line to be an "Extortion" Attempt

Singer sent the letter July 25, 2011, on behalf of Top Chef Canada judge Shereene Arazm to Big Brother contestant and VH1 Famous Food host Mike Malin.

Arazm and Malin were business partners in a restaurant group until Arazm said he discovered that Malin had embezzled and mismanaged more than $1 million in assets. In his letter, Singer demanded a full forensic accounting and the return of funds. He attached a draft of a lawsuit that he said would be filed in court if the dispute wasn't resolved. Perhaps most intimidating was the part of the letter that stated, "I have deliberately left blank spaces in portions of the complaint dealing with your using company resources to arrange sexual liaisons with ------------------.  When the complaint is filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, there will be no blanks in the pleading.”

Read Letter Here.... http://www.scribd.com/doc/141257673/Arazm-v-Malin-Malin-Letter

 "The allegations of sexual misconduct contained in the demand letter in this case are very tangential," wrote Los Angeles judge Mary Strobel, adding that the "letter is best read as extortion as a matter of law [because] [i]t threatens to reveal the names of sexual partners."

On Thursday, Singer will take his case on appeal — and he's being supported by several lawyer associations as well as the ACLU. At stake might be how aggressive Hollywood attorneys can be in messages to would-be defendants. Singer's own attorney Jeremy Rosen tells THR, "We remain confident in prevailing in this litigation because, under the trial court’s analysis, virtually all pre-litigation demand letters routinely sent by attorneys throughout the state would constitute extortion."

Singer believes that the judge should have stricken Malin's claim as an impingement of his client's First Amendment rights. The reason why the claim survived an anti-SLAPP challenge was because the judge determined that the pre-litigation communication was not protected due to it falling into an exception for illegal activity.

On appeal, Singer challenges this assessment.

Rosen tells California's 2nd Appellate District that in Flatley v. Mauro, the California Supreme Court articulated a "narrow exception" to the anti-SLAPP statute in instances where "either the defendant concedes, or the evidence conclusively establishes, that the assertedly protected speech or petition activity was illegal as a matter of law."

According to Singer's appellate brief, "Indeed, the actual evidence demonstrates that the demand letter was not the type of rare and highly egregious letter that could satisfy the narrow definition of extortion. As an initial matter, the demand letter simply stated the factual bases of the anticipated lawsuit detailing the wide range of financial wrongdoing Malin engaged in, including using restaurant group assets to pay his sexual partners."

The appeal brief contains many other arguments and can be read in full here.... http://www.scribd.com/doc/141257870/Respondent-Brief

In response, Malin's attorneys say that Singer is attempting to "hide behind the litigation privilege" by contending that "anything that an attorney puts into a 'demand letter' constitutes 'protected speech' ... no matter how egregious, or how unrelated the statement (threat) may be to the actual basis of the dispute."

Read the full respondent's brief here.... http://www.scribd.com/doc/141257870/Respondent-Brief

Read More.... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/hollywood-lawyer-marty-singer-appeals-521725