apr 25, 2017 - WALL STREET JOURNAL
Former Business Managers
to Blame for Financial Woes
Johnny Depp
INTERVIEW
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FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Johnny Depp fired back against allegations by his former business managers that his profligate spending is the cause of his financial problems, saying it was their negligence and fraud that caused him to lose tens of millions of dollars over more than a decade.
“Why didn’t they drop me as a client if I was so out of control?” Mr. Depp said in a telephone interview this week, his first public comments on the matter since he sued his former managers, the Management Group, in Los Angeles Superior Court in January.
“I’ve worked very, very hard for a lot of years and trusted a lot of people, some who’ve clearly let me down,” Mr. Depp said. He is seeking more than $25 million in damages for alleged fraud and professional negligence.
“We look forward to responding to Mr. Depp’s latest falsehoods in our amended pleadings,” said David Shane, spokesman for the Management Group, on Tuesday.
Mr. Depp alleges the Management Group caused him incur more than $40 million in debt and dispose of significant assets. He says the Mandels helped steer him into high-interest loans, didn’t make proper payment on loans and failed to make timely tax payments on his income for 15 years, resulting in $8.3 million in penalties.
The Management Group, an L.A. entertainment consulting firm run by the brothers Joel and Rob Mandel who had worked for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star from 1999 to March 2016, filed a countersuit claiming Mr. Depp’s financial woes are the result of his overspending and failure to heed repeated warnings about his situation. Alleging breach of contract and fraud, the Mandels say Mr. Depp lived a “selfish, reckless and irresponsible lifestyle” that cost $2 million a month.
“It’s my money,” Mr. Depp told The Wall Street Journal. “If I want to buy 15,000 cotton balls a day, it’s my thing.” The actor has earned more than $650 million over the course of his three-decade career, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Management Group is seeking $560,000 in unpaid fees and a ruling that Mr. Depp himself is solely responsible for his financial situation.
New details about the case emerged in court filings Tuesday. Mr. Depp’s lawyers disclosed in heavily redacted filings that they have received what they call “significant new information, including documents and testimony” from a former Management Group employee turned whistleblower. The employee’s testimony concerns the Management Group’s “misconduct in managing Mr. Depp’s affairs,” the filing alleged.
The filing is a response to a motion by the Mandels to keep the employee’s testimony private.
Mr. Depp first learned about the employee on Feb. 7, when he received an email about that person. The employee was allegedly fired for complaining about how the actor’s money had been handled, according to a copy of the email included in Tuesday’s filings.
“[S]he knows all the dirt,” the email stated.
Mr. Depp’s attorneys deposed the former employee on March 2.
Mr. Depp “is relying on dishonest, discredited statements from a vindictive former TMG employee who was fired seven years ago,” said Mr. Shane, the Management Group’s spokesman.
“The Mandels don’t want the whistleblower testimony made public because of fear of incrimination,” said Adam Waldman, Mr. Depp’s attorney.
Mr. Depp has also alleged the Mandels helped steer him into $19 million worth of high-interest loans. The Management Group in its countersuit claimed the actor’s entertainment lawyer, Jacob Bloom, orchestrated the loans. Mr. Bloom in an interview said he helped locate the lender and the Management Group handled the details of the loan.
Repayment of the loans would come from payments owed to Mr. Depp for his films including the “Pirates” series, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Into the Woods,” according to Mr. Depp’s complaint.
Mr. Depp should have received $25.7 million in payments over the course of the two-year period since the loan was initiated, according to his complaint. Instead, that money was used to repay the loans as well as pay fees to the Management Group and Mr. Bloom, and Mr. Depp received nothing, according to the complaint.
Mr. Depp said in the interview that he hasn’t spoken with Mr. Bloom since his lawsuit was filed in January. Mr. Bloom said Tuesday that he has tried to reach Mr. Depp, but the actor hasn’t returned his calls.
Mr. Depp also said in the interview that the Mandels committed factual errors about his spending in their Jan. 31 countersuit. They allege that he spent $3 million on a “specially made cannon” to blast the ashes of author Hunter S. Thompson.
False, says Mr. Depp: The cannon cost him $5 million.
Added to timeline:
The Johnny Depp Chronology
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Complete Timeline
The Johnny De...
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