 Clintons with Peter Paul and his wife Andrea (Courtesy paulvclinton.com) |
A multimillion-dollar lawsuit that had Sen. Hillary Clinton in its crosshairs amid her run for the White House has narrowed its focus to charges of business fraud against former President Bill Clinton and Spider-Man creator Stan Lee – now the target of a related suit over who owns rights to iconic comic book characters worth billions.
Hollywood entrepreneur Peter F. Paul is redrafting his complaint after California Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz granted the former president a motion for judgment on the pleadings last week. A motion of this kind alleges that even if all the assertions of the complaint are accepted as true, the defendant would still win the lawsuit.
Paul contends the original complaint, drafted with the help of his former legal team, Judicial Watch, had a political bent that obscured the main thrust of the case. Paul claims Bill Clinton accepted a $17 million employment package in which the former president promised to promote Paul’s Internet-based media company, Stan Lee Media, and asked Paul to spend more than $1.2 million to support his wife’s first Senate run. But, instead, the complaint says, Clinton reneged on his obligation by using privileged information to steal away Paul’s key Japanese investor and $5 million promised to Stan Lee Media, contributing to the company’s demise in late 2000.
Paul maintains Hillary Clinton “aided and abetted” Bill Clinton’s efforts to destroy his company after illegally solicting, coordinating and directing more than $1.2 million in expenditures from him to help assure her election to the Senate.
The New York Democrat succeeded in using California’s anti-SLAPP law to remove herself as a defendant from the case, but Munoz has stated she will have to testify as a material witness.
“My chances are much better now,” Paul insisted to WND. “Fundamentally, the case has always been about a business fraud directed by the president and first lady that cost me my company.”
Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, did not respond to WND’s request for comment.
Meanwhile, Paul is pointing to another lawsuit – filed by the new management of Stan Lee Media in Manhattan federal district court against Marvel Entertainment – to help back his claim that his former company was brought down by Clinton and Stan Lee himself.
In Los Angeles July 1, Munoz also denied Bill Clinton’s attempt to dismiss himself as a defendant through the state’s anti-SLAPP law, which, under the First Amendment, protects politicians from frivolous lawsuits during their election campaigns. The judge ruled the filing was too late, because Clinton had 60 days to respond after the complaint was filed in 2004.
However, since Paul’s team must now file an amended complaint, Clinton will have another 60 days to respond with a new anti-SLAPP motion.
‘Hillary Uncensored’
Paul believes that while Hillary Clinton is no longer a focus in the case, he succeeded in exposing fraud that helped contribute to her failure to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
 Peter Paul says this photo shows him celebrating his business deal with President Bill Clinton and his wife Andrea (Courtesy paulvclinton.com) |
Paul argues the emergence last fall of a 13-minute Internet trailer of a documentary on his case, “Hillary Uncensored,” coincided with the senator’s plunge in the presidential-race polls.
The trailer has a combined 8.2 million views on YouTube and Google, Paul notes, even though, he alleges, Google maneuvered to take the video off its top 10 list while it garnered the most daily views.
“I delivered on my promise to the tens of thousands of concerned Americans who supported my efforts to hold Hillary Clinton accountable in the court of public opinion and deny her the White House,” Paul said.
Paul emphasized the documentary used exclusive home video with “Hillary’s incriminating own words and illegal actions caught on tape.”
The Clintons were unsuccessful in a previous attempt to dismiss the case when the California Supreme Court, in 2004, upheld a lower-court ruling against their motion.
Earlier this year, Munoz delayed setting a trial date, because another defendant, Clinton aide Jim Levin, did not respond to the original complaint and needed to be served notice again.
Levin is a key figure in the case, according to Paul’s attorney, Colette Wilson, because he helped conceive a lavish Hollywood fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, then contacted Paul to underwrite the costs. Paul claims Levin later was directed by President Clinton to sabotage Stan Lee Media by convincing Paul’s Japanese partner – in violation of a confidentiality agreement – to incorporate a new company instead of investing another $5 million with Paul.
Levin filed his own anti-SLAPP motion, which is now moot, because of the July 1 ruling by Munoz requiring Paul to amend his complaint.
But Paul contends Levin’s declaration actually supports his case. In his attempt to argue he should be covered by the anti-SLAPP statute, Levin admits he coordinated Paul’s contributions on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Paul contends Levin’s coordination on behalf of Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton’s participation in soliciting performers and planning the Hollywood event, would make Paul’s more than $1.2 million in contributions a direct donation to her Senate campaign rather than to a joint fundraising committee, violating federal statutes that limit “hard money” contributions to a candidate to $2,000 per person. Knowingly accepting or soliciting $25,000 or more in a calendar year is a felony carrying a prison sentence of up to five years.
Levin’s declaration, Paul told WND, is “independent evidence, which should demand action by the Federal Election Commission that the Clintons engaged in illegal solicitation and coordination of my million-dollar-plus expenditures.”
As WND reported, Paul has filed a complaint with the FEC asking the agency to re-open an investigation into the contributions and to probe alleged continuing violations of the law by Sen. Clinton. The complaint asserts the Clinton campaign’s 2005 conciliation agreement with the FEC – in which a finance aide was fined $35,000 – effectively let Clinton and other top aides off the hook.
Who owns Spider-Man?
Paul notes the lawsuit filed by the new management shareholders of Stan Lee Media in Manhattan federal district court also asserts his claim Stan Lee Media was brought down by Bill Clinton and Stan Lee.
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Led by investor and former Wall Street informant Jim Nesfield, a Paul ally, the shareholders argue Stan Lee and Marvel Entertainment colluded to hide Stan Lee Media’s true value by hiding the fact that Lee assigned his creative rights to his comic book characters to Stan Lee Media to capitalize the company. With their box office success, Lee’s characters Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man and the X-Men are each billion dollar franchises.
Paul says this is critical to his lawsuit, and to his personal legal situation, because it affirms he was not responsible for the downfall of Stan Lee Media.
Paul awaits sentencing, under house arrest, after pleading guilty in 2005 to a 10(b)5 violation of the Securities and Exchange Commission for not publicly disclosing his control of Merrill Lynch margin accounts that held Stan Lee Media stocks and for transactions in mid-November 2000 he says were done to keep the stock from losing value and keep the company alive
Paul contends, along with the shareholders, that Stan Lee and Marvel Entertainment hid the fact Stan Lee Media owns 50 percent of the rights to the comic book characters, contributing to Stan Lee Media’s demise.
The claims in the Manhattan lawsuit, Paul says, are consistent with a federal judge’s determination in the dismissal of a civil lawsuit brought by Stan Lee Media against him and Merrill Lynch in July 2003. The judge said the “collapse of the margin scheme did not cause SLM’s stock to decline in value” and therefore was not responsible for the demise of the company.
The investment magazine Barron’s examined the Manhattan case and concluded in a story last month that securities filings for Marvel and Stan Lee Media contain seemingly contradictory assignments by Stan Lee of his rights to the superhero characters he helped create in the 1960s.
Barron’s points out that Lee assigned all his intellectual property to Stan Lee Media in October 1998, then went to Marvel a month later and claimed to assign the same rights to Marvel. The rights included Lee’s half-ownership of Spider-Man, the X-Men and other characters, since Marvel had cancelled his previous rights assignment in its bankruptcy in August 1998.
Marvel gave Lee a new contract in November 1998 for up to $1 million in annual salary and 10 percent of movie and TV profits, assigning Marvel his rights in those characters. When “Spider-Man: The Movie” grossed more than $1 billion, Lee invoked his contract in 2002 and sued, stating he had made a “conditional assignment of his rights to his world famous characters to Marvel.” Stan Lee Media contends that when Lee signed the November 1998 agreement with Marvel, he had no more rights to give, because they already had been assigned to Stan Lee Media. The two parties settled in 2005 for $10 million.
Marvel rejected Nesfield’s claims to Lee’s creations. Nesfield then filed a complaint with the SEC, claiming collusion between Lee and Marvel management to hide Lee’s assignment to Stan Lee Media.
Paul said he believes it’s significant the SEC has not removed Nesfield’s 13D filing since it was published in August 2007. If it’s false, he said, it should be removed; but if it’s true, the SEC should take action.
Lee filed a complaint with a Colorado state court judge, claiming Nesfield had hijacked Stan Lee Media.
Lee wrote a letter to shareholders, asking them not to support Nesfield’s board candidates. He said Paul was behind Nesfield’s group and blamed Paul for the company’s bankruptcy in 2000.
But the judge ruled in May that Nesfield’s board was the official management of the company. At the court-supervised shareholder election, the shareholders rejected Lee’s efforts to dissolve the company and elected Nesfield chairman and president.
In a statement to Barron’s, Marvel insisted Nesfield’s group will recover nothing. Lee’s agreement with Stan Lee Media never mentioned any Marvel characters, Marvel argued. The comic book giant told Barron’s that Stan Lee’s character creations were “works-for-hire” and have always belonged to Marvel.
But Barron’s said the statements seem at odds with Lee’s Marvel contracts and his 2002 lawsuit. The investment publication said Lee didn’t respond to its inquiries.
A staffer at Lee’s office told WND that Lee would not comment on any current litigation.
The Barron’s story apparently had investors worried that the lawsuit was a genuine threat to the comic book characters’ title, as Marvel stock immediately dipped.
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