Is it possible to get criminal charges filed against two silent half partners who embezzled the company operating funds by asking to take them to another bank where they could get a better interest rate. They asked the banker for a credit report on the operations manager for the company, put the loan in all their names, but put the money only in their two names. They had the company appraised at $1M just five months before, 18 months into its existence. They demanded that the year end profit be used as advised by the two CPAs involved with the company, who said to purchase assets. The manager did, using about $90K, leaving only $36K in profit for 2005. Then the partners said he should have asked them what to do about the purchases.

These partners in late January, 2006, had complete control of the operating funds and refused to pay the operating partner's salary for over a month until he would sign a document making one of them the COO and CFO and reduce his salary by 23% to less than his technical staff made and did not provide for his bills to be paid and allow him to eat and buy gas to get to client accounts. He signed, but hired a lawyer in mid April to negotiate getting his salary back before they bankrupted him.

They threatened him to his lawyer when they discovered the lawyer was present in one of the phone calls he used to negotiate and kept on threatening him. The general idea was that they wanted him in May,
2006, to sign over 2/3 of the company in their individual names rather than their partnership business name and that he could have his salary back. But they threatened to sue him for theft for using a credit card and paying $300 for a boat part while taking customers on an outing, threatened to sue his wife for accepting and cashing HIS payroll check in HER name so she could take it immediately to her parents who were helping them purchase their first house, threatened to ruin his reputation with the customers if he did not do as they asked, threatened to ruin his life if he left the company... or he could immediately sign a non-compete and stop the other employees, who had refused to meet when the other partners, from leaving the company. They visited several of the company clients and suggested that the operating officer was just a "dime a dozen techie". The employees were incensed when the clients told them that had been said.

The operating officer/techie dissociated June 19, 2006. They prepared a buyout based on his salary being charged to his equity and no contribution for his full time work credited to the account. Effectively, by this arrangement he would owe them back his entire salary for the time he was with the company when he dissociated. So with $86K in profit by June 19th, they stated that the officer owed them $25K and that they would accept $1 from him to buy him out of his ownership. ????? He refused. The CPA doing his 2006 taxes discovered that the K1 from 2005 was wrong as was the one from 2006. The IRS recently wrote him that he owes $13K for taxes and penalties on top of that for failure to file the K1 they received from the lawyers or their CPA. But his forensic accountant worked with the local CPA and found that they said they had bought him out in 2005 for $51K and that they paid him $41K for less than five months work in 2006... since they refused to pay his last check when he dissociated. Of course they didn't buy him out, and he couldn't have made more than $18K in those five months after they took away 23% of his salary. So perhaps the IRS is going to get a letter signed by TWO CPAs to the effect that they did not file correctly.

What I have not told you is that these silent partners were HIS attorneys from 2003 for his music management invention AND for his store owner where he managed the store, that they were paid more than their investment in this new company for legal work they did for the new company (charged to Expenses while his salary was charged to Equity) and they never finished writing the LLC operating agreement. And that the ARDC has filed enough charges that they had to ask that one of the partners resign as a member of the board of governors of the Illinois State Bar Association before the next (3rd)hearing in November ?when they will be disbarred? It will be 2009 before they are disbarred! Amazing!

They have the officer under an injunction after 12 perjured statements and testimony of an expert to whom they offered his ownership to investigate and testify in his preliminary injunction hearing. He received $15K for doing that but never could get what they didn't own. He is not allowed to work in his profession for any customer who services his former clients. To make it possible for him to stay in the area, I started an IT company and hired the employees who literally left enmass when he dissociated. They spent a couple of days phoning from the yellow pages, but had 80% of the client count in the old company by the end of the first day. He is not in the company, but his wife is my operating officer. He has his own new business company but refers some clients to us when he doesn't want to do that kind of business. Together, we are bigger than the original company and I've spent $10K for education courses to ensure that all employees are up for the best job we can do. All the ex-employees and I are also being sued as co-conspirators with the officer which is not true at all. There is no lawful reason for them to have included any of us... and no reason for the frivolous lawsuit they filed against him for violating his injunction... the fact is that a disgruntled former employee of THEIRS redirected the company website to the officer's website. They accused him of using their logo without noticing that it is not the same as theirs which they haven't used since June, 2006. The former employee testified in that hearing.

Now. What degree of success would we have for filing complaints leading to criminal charges for what they have done? What should we say? Embezzlement? Extortion? Fraud in the Buyout? Obtaining a court order for financial gain by perjury and witness tampering? Or should we let the attorneys determine what to charge them with?

I responded to your other post.