Shane Senter has pled guilty to four counts of the indictment against him. When sentencing occurs later this month, he is expected to receive 5 years probation, not be allowed to own, operate, manage or control a business where he takes payments/deposits up front, and be ordered to pay restitution.
New Line Cinema has reached an undisclosed agreement with the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien and HarperCollins Books over royalties from The Lord of the Rings films. The estate alleged that they had not seen a single penny from the successful movie franchise and the dispute was threatening production of the two-film version of The Hobbit, scheduled to begin filming in 2010.
The estate of author Adrian Jacobs is suing J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury for plagiarism, claiming that “substantial parts” of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire were copied from Jacobs’s 1987 novel The Adventures of Willy the Wizard — No 1 Livid Land. Bloomsbury has responded saying “The allegations of plagiarism made today, Monday 15 June 2009, by the Estate of Adrian Jacobs are unfounded, unsubstantiated and untrue.” Jacobs died penniless in 1997 and his estate previously made the plagiarism claim in 2004. According to Bloomsbury, in 2004, “The claim was unable to identify any text in the Harry Potter books which was said to copy Willy the Wizard.”
“Clark Rockefeller” (a.k.a. Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter and Christopher Chichester) has been convicted of kidnapping his daughter. “Rockefeller” is also considered a person of interest in the disappearance of sf fans John and Linda Sohus in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Although evidence concerning the Sohus’s disappearance wasn’t permitted at his kidnapping trial, the investigation into “Rockefeller’s” link to the Sohus’s is continuing.
Shane Senter, currently facing two felony theft charges and four misdemeanor counts of unfair or deceptive business practices relating to his attempts to create Jumpcon, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Senter previously filed for bankruptcy in 2000, but that case was dismissed by the courts. According to the filing, Senter has debts in excess of $8 million, including two small-claims judgments awarded to science fiction fans.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has refused to hear Victor Horadam’s appeal to a 2008 ruling, settling a lawsuit over the Andre Norton estate rights. Horadam claimed that Norton’s will stipulated that he should receive royalties on all Norton works published following her death. Sue Stewart, Norton’s long-time care giver claimed that the will gave her rights over any posthumous reprints and only gave Horadam rights over works published for the first time after Norton’s death. Horadam won the initial trial, which was reversed upon Stewart’s appeal.
Shane Senter, who announced a series of several media conventions called JumpCon, has been indicted on two counts of theft and four counts of unfair or deceptive business practices. Senter had hoped to make JumpCon an event in several different cities, beginning with Boston. The Boston con was cancelled shortly before it was supposed to have been held in 2008 and no JumpCons ever occurred.
Children’s author Kevin Bath, who publishes the “Castle Cant” series under the name K.P. Bath, has been charged with three felony counts involving child pornography. Bath, who was accused of trading child porn with others in Washington and Ohio, has plead not-guilty. Pending a June 6 trial, he has been barred from contact with children. His publisher, Little, Brown Children’s, has canceled the Fall 2010 publication of his book Flip Side.
In 1985, SF fans Jonathan and Linda Sohus disappeared, as did a young man renting a room from them, Christopher Chichester. With the discovery that Chichester was really Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (a.k.a. Clark Rockefeller), who is on trial in Boston for kidnapping his daughter last year, the LA County Sheriff’s department has announced that it is reopening the Sohus case. In the late 80s, Gerhartsreiter was ticketed while driving Sohus’s truck and a human skeleton was found in the Sohus’s back yard when a subsequent owner put in a swimming pool.
A lawsuit filed by Robert Fletcher against SF authors Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss claiming defamation, loss of business and emotional distress has been dismissed with prejudice by a Massachusetts judge. Crispin and Strauss were sued in line with their volunteer work for SFWA’s “Writers Beware” site pointing out questionable agencies and business practices. The suit was dismissed because of Fletcher’s failure to respond to discovery or otherwise prosecute the lawsuit. Fletcher and his companies are currently under investigation by the Florida Attorney General’s Office. Crispin and Strauss intend to file suit against Fletcher and his companies in an attempt to recoup legal fees.