Porn Valley- This afternoon I spoke both to William Millard a salesman at Dane Productions and Jeff Krull who heads up Don Goo, the company Millard used to work for. Millard is making some charges against Krull who states that Millard took customer lists of his and that he wants them back. Millard is also citing harassment, and there are other contentions about money allegedly being owed by Krull to Millard. Krull says nonsense to those, as well.
Millard left Don Goo claiming he had a verbal contract with the company. “My contract was up and I had an offer made by Dane Productions,” says Millard. “I took the offer. I left on good terms, but they [Don Goo] owe me $3,000. Since I’ve left there I’ve had nothing but horrible e-mails and slandering and threats of putting me in jail for stealing stuff from the owner of Don Goo, Jeff Krull. He just constantly keeps harassing me and threatening to put me in jail and take me to court.”
I ask Millard why is this. Millard said it’s because he left the company, basically. “He thinks I took paperwork and stole checks from him which I’ve never done. I never took any paperwork from him. He thinks I’m slandering him and taking business from him. Any salesman in this industry, chances are, if you leave from one company to another you tend to lose a little bit of money if you lose your top producer. It’s going to happen. I don’t know how to make this go away, but it’s not going away easily. Now I’ve got attorneys.”
Millard said it’s been frustrating to make a transition. “I’m trying to help Dane go back to a positive point in the business after all the things that have gone on with what’s happened with Future Works and Forbidden and everything else. I’ve come over here to help rebuild this company.” According to Millard, Krull is “hindering his progress” at doing that. Millard, who was with Don Goo for two years, says that Krull owes him money. “He owes me $3,000 of which my last check had been two weeks late. I have four kids. I need to make sure I provide for them. I’m a sole parent.” Millard also claims he’s in a financial hole because of what’s going on. Millard was on salary, not commission.
“He [Krull] is now telling me that I owe him money. If you can imagine. I’m on salary but I owe him money.” According to Millard he and Krull settled on a salary, Millard claiming that Krull would tell him he couldn’t afford to pay him the kind of money warranted by commissions. “Me being the nice guy I said, okay, we’ll restructure. This was an ongoing thing.” Millard is also saying he got another offer last year that would have paid him more. “He [Krull] heard about that so he offered me a $1500 a week salary. I agreed to that because it was a fair price. We did that for a year. At that point the contract was up and I told him I’m going to other places. I gave him a two weeks notice. He told me we don’t want you here because we don’t want you looking for another job while you’re working here.”
According to Millard, he wasn’t paid for those two weeks and Krull then declared open season on him, blaming him for returns. “He’s now saying I currently owe him a $1,000. He’s billing me for charges that he thinks occurred with my leaving, whichever.” Millard claims that he’s not slandering Krull but seems to make a point of how Don Goo owes money in the industry. “Nobody has to slander him when they all know how much money is owed by him, be it printers or replicators, or people in the industry itself.”
Millard is also claiming that Krull calls over at Dane. “He harasses me over the phone. I can’t work like this. It takes away from my day. You’re threatening to put a guy in jail who has sole custody of these children? He has no proof that I’ve taken anything out of his office. Nor have I. I haven’t taken one red cent from that man. I’ve only given and given. I’ve built Don Goo what it is today. I can’t believe how I can be treated in this manner just because I decide not to work for this gentleman any more.”
Millard is saying that he’s willing to concede the $3,000 to Krull. “I told him do what you have to do with it, hopefully that will get you out of your bind and your situation. I left it like that. I didn’t ask him for the money at that point. But for him to add on a $1,000 to that is out of this world. I was being a stand up guy, trying to be a good guy.”
According to Millard, the last time Krull called, Krull was claiming that Millard had taken checks from his office. “Before I even had anything to say, he hung up the phone.” Millard says he’s received a number of e-mails including demands of customer lists.
“Him demanding lists from Dane is just ludicrous. By him coming at Ed Cohen, Ed does not play this game. Don’t start putting Dane’s name into this. Dane has done nothing wrong except hire a salesman who’s going to be a top producer for them. We’re trying to build Dane’s hardcore line. This line is going to be one of the best lines in the industry.”
Krull has another view of the situation. “My attorneys have contacted his company,” Krull points out. “My attorneys have demanded back our customer proprietary list; our customer e-mail list and other items that are missing from our offices.” Krull says he’s simply demanding his property back.
“There are things missing from our offices that coincide with his leaving our building,” says Krull. “We’ve asked any of our employees or former employees to return items that don’t belong to them. If those said items are not returned, our company reserves to take appropriate action against any employee, current or former, that’s taken items from our offices.”
Krull hastens to point out that there’s no dispute over money.
“He [Millard] was owed $1500, not $3000 and he advised us to keep the $1500 on deposit to cover returns that he had from sending out orders,” Krull continues. “And we’re getting an enormous amount of refused orders that he shipped. We have that money on account. He has been advised that he’ll receive a monthly statement of that. As of this point he’s no longer owed that money because it’s gone beyond what he’s owed.”
Krull states that this was an agreement made by both parties when Millard left, that Millard was supposed to sign it and never did. “That’s between him and his maker,” says Krull. “But he advised us to keep his last paycheck. We did not withhold it. He advised us to keep it versus errors and we’ve had a considerable amount of errors.”
Other than one phone call, Krull says he’s made none to Dane. “I requested any and all property of Don Goo that may have been taken to be returned. There are items from our office that are missing of proprietary nature. It’s very simple.”
Krull says he’s received other phone calls about Millard. “Regarding his activies. William also admitted to our attorneys that he had items from our offices. We’re requesting those back and have every right to request them back. These are not customers of William Millard. They’re customers of Don Goo Enterprises.” Other than that, Krull says he wishes Millard and his family well. “What he did was one of the worst back-stabs I’ve ever had in my entire life,” says Krull.
“William Millard was a person who was hired here with a questionable background. We gave him a shot. We paid him $75,000 a year. We put him on salary. We took him to shows and when things went wrong at those shows, we did not terminate him. One show that we sent him to, he went to Las Vegas, and he was supposed to report back that night and never did. He ended up the next day in Oakland and that’s a verfiable fact through Southwest Airlines. That’s not something that can be denied.”
Krull said he’s shocked that management at Dane would condone such activities. “He [Millard] admitted to our attorneys that there were items in the building that were not his. That’s all I can say about this.” Krull is of the opinion that Millard, by bringing the story to the forefront, is forgetting things that are in written form.
“Did I send an e-mail out to him requesting I get documents back, and, if not, I would take proper action? Absolutely. My lawyer sent the letter and I sent a follow-up. We have every right to request our documents back.”
Had Millard not done that, Krull says his law firm wouldn’t be contacting Dane regarding their employee. “He wants to leave- go. It was his idea to leave his paycheck here, not ours. No one asked him not to get paid. The way we do our payroll is very similar to the way any comapny does their payroll. We lag a week. If you work two weeks you get paid the third week, but you don’t get paid for the week you just worked. That’s the way everybody gets paid but William really doesn’t understand that. When he left he was in the middle of a payroll week. He was owed for one week. If he was paid the other $1500, he would have been paid for a week he didn’t work. He always had a difficulty understanding that.”