STATEMENT RE: MY ASSOCIATION WITH RICHARD WERTH
I had the misfortune to be associated with Mr. Werth from about 1997 to 1999. He said he had a huge, state-of-the-art recording studio with 55 employees and all kinds of prestigious accolades. He didn't. All the "employees" (Margaret Beaumont, Cameron Powers, Michael Valentine, Samuel Ashley, the whole fictitious "legal department", just to name a few) turned out to be him role-playing all by himself. The "award-winning studio" turned out to be just some ordinary video equipment and his kitchen table.Richard Vanceunebrouck Werth is an alias. His real name is Richard Carl Werth.
Richard bartered the use of his sound system for a vending spot at my dance events. Richard would "accidentally" videotape dancers, "gift" them with the tape, and then demand their phone numbers and contact information on a release form he would then produce. For such a self-proclaimed professional, there was a lot of "accidental" videotaping going on.
What is most disturbing to me is that during the 2 or so years we were buddies, he used these fake employees and false pretenses to get women's phone numbers and addresses from me. He would claim his boss had a project going with Dancer So-and-So, he couldn't access the company address book because the secretary was out, and he needed to contact her right away before some project deadline....all the while insisting he was a celibate former Buddhist monk, ordained by the Dalai Lama himself.
When I reached the point where I no longer wanted to deal with him, I was bombarded with email and phone calls from Richard, from "lawyers" (who, curiously, would not say they actually represented Richard), and even HIS MOTHER trying to force me to meet him somewhere, without my husband or my attorney, to "settle" this. He wanted to compel me to continue the barter arrangement through "arbitration". He contacted my friends, pressuring them to convince me to meet him somewhere. When I refused, he threatened that "someone" would make a false report to CPS about me. "Someone" did.
We hired a lawyer, who determined that Omega Organization International was being run as a fraudulent business entity. Richard/Omega had no business license and had never registered with the Washington Department of Revenue, even though Richard had been collecting sales tax. Because of the fraud, I was able to have my lawyer void all contracts and releases I had signed for him.
Hasani Abbott
Gig Harbor, WA
May, 2008
