Porn Valley- I spoke to Mr. Metro the other night and he was telling me how porn chick Ann Marie is defending her boyfriend who used to be employed at Metro. Seth, depending who you talked to, appropriated anywhere from $250,000 to $500,000 of Metro's money when he was a salesman there. Ann Marie is saying he couldn't have taken the money because he was a partner with Kenny Guarino.
"Kenny never had a partner," laughs Mr. Metro. "And Seth devised an elaborate means by which to change credit terms and cash invoices then funnel Metro money into his own pocket. Seth finally got caught when he was supposed to be at a trade show on the East Coast.
"People would place orders and when they'd come to Metro to pick them up," Mr. Metro continues, "Seth would accompany them to the warehouse taking the money directly. He'd tell people he was an owner of the company and they'd believe him."
According to Mr. Metro, Seth's undoing was when he missed the trade show, telling Metro he was admitted to a hospital for some illness. Metro attempted to change Seth's plane ticket and discovered from the airlines that he already hopped a flight back to L.A. to be with his girlfriend, Ann Marie.
"That got the company suspicious," says Mr. Metro. "They started doing a little investigating and came up with a $5,000 transaction from a customer that looked squirrelly. The money went directly to Seth and never showed up in accounting. A company audit was performed and $500,000 was determined missing."
According to Mr. Metro, the company sent some boys from the East Coast to have a word with him. By now Seth is realizing he's in the corner but thought it only had to do with the trade show beef. He started making promises how he's going to get on the ball, improve things and show Metro what a good employee he was. He doesn't know about the boys from the East Coast, however.
"Seth is told that Kenny wants to have a chat with him on a conference call, so Seth is led into a room. Kenny gets on the phone with him and tells Seth he fucked up really bad. 'You have no idea how bad you fucked up,' Kenny emphasizes to him. Suddenly there's a knock on the door and this goon walks in. Kenny tells Seth, see that man? We got big fucking problems."
Mr. Metro says Seth sang for the next two days and put everything on tape. Asked where the money went, Seth told Metro he spent it on drugs. But Seth assured the company he'd pay them back and get his father to help him. A private investigator places the call and speaks to the father a moment. He then turns the phone over to Seth.
"Seth gets on the phone with his father," says Mr. Metro. "It was 1 AM here and 4 AM back on the East Coast. Seth begins wailing telling his father, 'Dad, I did it gain,' which is a dead giveaway that he must have done something like this before. Seth's father tells him he'll help because he's his son.
"Metro got some cash and some of its product back but I don't know if it got everything. In any event. Ann Marie had no clue about any of this. She thought she was engaged to Kenny's partner."
