Another Lawsuit

[Pretty Funky]

From the bbc and various others...


Collector counter-sues Beach Boys 
 
The Beach Boys took legal action against Roy Sciacca in January
A collector accused of stealing Beach Boys records and memorabilia has taken legal action against the band.
Roy Sciacca claims he purchased boxes of photos, music and other items at liquidation sales in the 1980s.

He is seeking $20m (£10.5m) damages or the right to sell the items, according to an action filed against the band's corporate entity, Brother Records Inc.

In January the band sued Mr Sciacca and Allan Gaba, claiming they stole the effects from a Los Angeles warehouse.

According to their complaint, Mr Gaba removed 13 to 25 boxes of memorabilia that the band had stored in his north Hollywood warehouse without their permission.

It claimed the men violated the group's copyright, trademark and "right of publicity" by trying to auction the goods in October.

'Unfortunate'

The sale, organised by UK-based auctioneers Cooper Owen, was cancelled 30 minutes before it had been due to start.

In his legal action, Mr Sciacca said the band had been wrong to stop the sale.

 
At their height, the Beach Boys' success rivalled that of the Beatles
He claims the band's tour manager was present during the liquidation sales and had approved everything that was sold.

"I love the Beach Boys," he said on Thursday. "It disgusts me how far this has gone."

Ed McPherson, the Beach Boys' attorney, dismissed Mr Sciacca's counter-suit as a publicity stunt.

"It's unfortunate there are people out there that take advantage of situations like this," he said.

The Beach Boys had a string of hit singles and albums in the 1960s, rivalling the Beatles' commercial and critical success.

The band - whose hits include I Get Around, California Girls and God Only Knows - were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

 

[Lola Jane]

This is a good article, I think:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14560363.htm

[Surfer Joe]

Amazing- the article is not  headlined Bad Vibrations? and contains absolutely no reference to the lawsuit not being "Fun, Fun Fun". 

Someone at the Herald will lose their job over this.

[Surfer Joe]

Check out this message board response to the article:


Comments

Not being involved w/ this or Roy Sciacca in a few years I can't say anything directly on this, but I can supply a few interesting tid bits of info about Roy Sciacca and to a lesser degree one of his lawyers, Gary Pollack and let people draw their own conclusions from there.

For several years I work with and directly for Roy Sciacca on the "Hopey Cartoon Project". During my dealings with Roy Sciacca over several years I learned of many and have some direct knowledge of many of Roy Sciacca's illegal business activities and scams he's pulled on people.

A few things to mention here that Roy Sciacca has done would include are: purchase a second SSN (social security number) and not have it linked to his original so he could get decent credit again; diluting of corporate stock; embezzlement; not paying employees; taking money in exchange for publicly traded company stock and then never issuing the stock certificates; using corporate money for personal use; and in a bizzare similar instance Roy Sciacca was involved with his wife's brother, Ken, over a great deal of Elvis memorabilia. Which course spent quite a good deal of time in and out of court and lawsuits between the two, but there was a third partner that Roy & Ken had that lived in Finland that Roy hid a great deal of his memorabilia with so Ken would never find or know about. Of course Roy assumed that the partner in Finland would just hold all of it, but over the partner was selling pieces on his own or only giving smaller pieces back or had to be purchased back.

Like I said I have no idea about the Beach Boys material, but I was doing business with Roy Sciacca for several years and was with him on more than one occasion when he would have to hock his diamond pinkie ring or one of his guitars on more than one occasion just to feed his kids or have gas money. And I actually helped him move out of his house under direct Broward County Sherriff watch because he was being evicted due to lack of rent payment. Over time as I and other partners and people who worked with Roy put pieces together we realized that the very charming, very charismatic speaker had a very repetitive pattern of behavior. Roy Sciacca would manage to sweet/fast talk someone or groups of people into something and eventually swindle them in some way and then move on to the next group. To put it another way, Roy's own family: Mom, Dad, Brother won't even talk to him because of what happened to them in dealings with Roy.

My point is don't jump to conclusions until everything rises above the snake oil that been laid out by Roy Sciacca's lawyer's strategy for sympathy. And maybe Roy Sciacca did in fact get the Beach Boy memorabilia 20 odd years ago, but theyve been famous and been worth something for awhile now. Do you really believe that someone who would hock a guitar for $150 to feed his kids would not have sold this material then???

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      Posted by: Marko Hurst
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    * 5/13/2006 12:28 PM
    * 114.3 Report as Violation

   

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