Local
Metro Weekly sued for more than $1 million
Post-Newsweek lawsuit alleges fraud, seeks damages
Metro Weekly, a local LGBT magazine, is being sued over an alleged $85,000 printing debt by a company owned by Post-Newsweek Media, Inc., the media conglomerate that owns the Washington Post, according to a lawsuit filed July 8 in D.C. Superior Court. The lawsuit also seeks $1 million in punitive damages.
The lawsuit, which was first reported by the Washington Business Journal in its Aug. 6, 2010 edition (Vol.29 No.15), alleges that the company that owns Metro Weekly, Jansi LLC, and one of Jansi’s two shareholders, Randy Shulman, are responsible for a five-year-old printing debt with the Gaithersburg, Md., printing firm Comprint, a Post-Newsweek affiliate.
In addition to charging Jansi and Shulman with breach of contract for not paying the printing debt, the lawsuit accuses them of fraud for allegedly entering into a licensing agreement with Isosceles Publishing, Inc., the corporation that owned and operated Metro Weekly up until November 2007, for the alleged purpose of evading debts and liabilities.
“Upon information and belief, Mr. Shulman, Jansi, and Isosceles entered into the 2007 License Agreement with the specific intention to evade Isosceles’ creditors while continuing to publish, and reap revenue from, Metro Weekly,” the lawsuit says. “As a direct result of the defendant’s fraud, plaintiff suffered damages in a sum to be proved at trial but expected to exceed $1,000,000,” the lawsuit states in its request for punitive damages.
“We believe the lawsuit filed against Jansi LLC by Post-Newsweek is wholly without merit,” said William McLain, Jansi’s attorney.
McLain said he could not comment on any further details of the case until he files a response to the lawsuit later this month on behalf of Jansi.
“This story is totally premature for publication, and our responsive pleadings will support our claim that the lawsuit is without merit,” he told the Blade.
Although McLain has yet to file Jansi’s response to the lawsuit, Washington Business Journal quoted him as saying Post-Newsweek was not going to recover its money from Jansi because “it’s just not that corporation’s debt.”
Paul Thayer, the attorney representing Post-Newsweek, said he expects Jansi to argue in its response to the lawsuit that the printing debt was incurred by Isosceles Publishing, Inc., rather than Jansi.
Isosceles and Jansi entered into the licensing agreement in November 2007 in which Isoceles “granted to Jansi the exclusive right to publish Metro Weekly in exchange for a licensing fee,” the lawsuit says.
It says that Shulman disclosed in a deposition taken during a 2009 lawsuit filed by Post-Newsweek against Isosceles, in an earlier effort to collect the printing debt, that “each and every Isosceles employee was transferred to, and was exclusively compensated by, Jansi” after the licensing agreement took effect.
A Superior Court judge issued a judgment in Post-Newsweek’s favor on Dec. 11, 2009, ordering Isosceles Publishing to pay the $85,000 printing bill plus “pre-judgment interest at the rate of 6 percent per annum, dating from Feb. 1, 2009 to the date of judgment” along with court costs.
Thayer said Isoceles had yet to make any payments on the debt since the December judgment.
The July lawsuit argues that Jansi LLC and Shulman should be held responsible for the debt because “there has been a near complete intermingling of corporate funds, staff, and property between Isosceles and Jansi LLC.”
“Mr. Shulman has confirmed that one motive for the License Agreement was a desire to continue publishing Metro Weekly without having the publisher responsible for debts incurred by Isosceles,” the latest lawsuit says.
The lawsuit states that Sean Bugg, Shulman’s business partner, is the second of the two shareholders in Jansi LLC. Bugg is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, in a related development, Washington Business Journal reported in the same story that “nearly $656,000 in federal and state tax liens have been filed against Isosceles,” according to data the newspaper said it gathered.
Public records available from the D.C. Recorder of Deeds, which keeps track of tax liens, show that 21 federal, D.C., or unemployment liens have been filed against Isosceles Publishing between 1996 and 2010. Thirteen are listed as a “U.S. Tax Lien.”
It could not be determined from the Recorder of Deeds docket listing of the Isosceles liens whether they are still pending or have been resolved.
McLain declined to comment on the liens.
The lawsuit states that Isosceles entered into a settlement agreement with Post-Newsweek in June 2005 to pay what at the time was a printing debt of $125,000 incurred “over a period of years.” It says that from 2005 to December 2008, Isosceles made payments totaling $40,000.
“Isosceles failed to make any further payments in accordance with the terms of the Settlement Agreement,” the lawsuit says.
Cameroon
Gay Cameroonian immigrant will be freed from ICE detention — for now
Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality
By ANTONIO PLANAS | An immigration judge on Friday issued a $4,000 bond for a Cameroonian immigrant and regional gaming champion held in federal immigration detention for the past three weeks.
The ruling will allow Ludovic Mbock, of Oxon Hill, to return to Maryland from a Georgia facility this weekend, his family and attorney said.
“Realistically, by tomorrow. Hopefully, by today,” said Mbock’s attorney, Edward Neufville. “We are one step closer to getting Ludovic justice.”
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position
Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.
The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.
“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.
The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.
The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.
Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.
“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
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