I'm not so sure about that. I think this type of money increases the chances feds could get involved but, in my experience, it's not as cut and dry as you might think. In fact, I'm involved in a case right now where a peson embezzeled over 1 mil, has admitted to the act, and the feds have not yet done a thing (6 months after the fact so far). We'll see.

Pinside is full of baseless speculation but I'd be especially hesitant to jump to any conclusions in a case like this, where speculation can cause a lot of damage to a business

Anybody can file a lawsuit in this counrty against anybody for anything. I could file a suit against you today for $10,000 for stealing money from orphans and then say that anybody dealing with you would be taking a huge risk.

The fact that a lawsuit was filed isn't indicitive of a successful suit.

Furthermore, without having more infomation about Jack's personal finances and JJP's finances it would be imprudent for me to speculate about the effect of the suit. Moreover, there is a potential that additional factors could affect the analysis (indemnity agreements, insurance coverage, etc.)

I agree that its not good to be sued, but I don't think its responsible to speculate about this in the same way that people speculate about whether Stern's next game is going to suck or not.

I've handled a lot of civil litigation (including employment litigation, noncompetes, etc.) and the fact that it's a former employer suing doesn't mean anything in and of itself as far as the validity of the claim. The example I gave to you was to illustrate the fact that the bringing of the suit itself means nothing about the merits of the suit. Likewise, the connection between the plaintiff and the defendant doesn't tell you anything about the merits. Unless you have private information about the suit, you also don't know anything about the ability of the defendants to pay for representation, and to pay the claim if it is meritorious.

I agree with you that people may be extra cautious with their money until they learn more facts. That makes sense. What does not make sense is that we have almost no facts and already people have jumped into speculating about all sorts of things. To make matters worse, many people make up their minds about things like this before the facts come out. After that anything that does not fit into their narrative is ignored or misinterpreted. So, speculation at this point can be especially damaging. Saying "this doesn't look good for investers" is really just harmful speculation.

All I'm saying is wait until the facts come out before we get all hysterical. That includes speculating about whether the defendants have the financial ability to defend the suit. It's reasonable for customers to be concerned but its not reasonable to jump to conclusions and assume Jack and/or his company don't have the ability to handle litigation without an adverse affect on the operation of the business without supporting facts that substantiate those concerns.

There is some amount of debate about style in Complaints, especially these days. Many good attorneys would argue that the legal jargon has gone overboard and serves little purpose other than to make lawyers sound lawyerly. Because of that sentient, there are many Supreme Court Justices who write very plainly. On the other hand, this one (in my opinion anyway) goes a little over the edge with the editorializing. Lots of times this type of language is put in there to satisfy the client but it's quite possible that, in this case, the editorializing is aimed at the amusement industry/public.

No, a criminal case is often much more effective for collecting stolen funds because what it usually comes down to is that reimbursing the victim = less jail time. In most cases that is the best motivator to get somebody to pay a debt. It's also free to the victim. The other advantage to a criminal case is that the victim may get the advantage of using law enforcement's forensic accountants (depending on the resources of law enforcement: FBI and Homeland Security often having way more resources than local or State authorities).

Without knowing more about the underlying facts here it's very difficult to jump to conclusions about a criminal case but the absence of one is not something to brush off. Under any normal circumstance, any victim in their right mind who has the ability to use the criminal system to help collect the debt would, at least, use the criminal system along with the civil suit. In an ideal situation they would not file the civil suit unless they had to, after the criminal angle failed. The other absence to note here is some type of attachment proceeding to attempt to freeze funds while the suit is pending.