Porn Valley- This week the Michael Ninn camp will ask for a cease and desist on Spearmint Rhino, John Gray, and The Four.
The Four was Ninn’s unintentional swan song for Ninn Worx_SR, but someone choked the swan. Gray who ousted Ninn from Ninn Worx_SR late in May now has the movie in his possession. Ninn says the movie in its present state isn’t his as he envisioned it and Gray, vis a vis, is guilty, allegedly, of trademark violations.
I spoke at length with Ninn Sunday afternoon. I asked him if he was attending The Four premier party in August. Ninn laughs. He says neither he nor The Four porn actresses in the movie, Brea Bennett, Cassidey, Nikki Kane and Renee Perez will likely be there as well.
“I guarantee you the movie will not be there, either, in light of what our attorneys are telling us,” Ninn adds.
“They took the show from me before I was finished editing it. I warned Mr. Gray that the edit was for my purposes only and not for the public to see it. And they went ahead, plugged in the sex scenes and kept the edit as is, from my understanding.”
“So what the movie, people are going to see is not really your movie?”
“Exactly,” says Ninn. “But I’m not sure they’re going to see it with the injunctions. There is a myriad of copyright infringements.”
Ninn says he will be issuing a press release this week to that effect.
“There will be an open letter to the press and our distributors stating that fact. We have also advised Mr. Gray in multiple e-mails not to release any of the original edit. He had never checked for music or for elements. Nothing has been cleared.”
Ninn comments about his other ongoing battles with Gray and says it’s getting better and better daily as far as the drama and intrigue much of which has already been detailed by Ninn on the website Gray allegedly hijacked. Asked about how the FBI investigation of Gray is going, Ninn says he was out of the loop on the story as reported in AVN last week.
“The [AVN] story was really fluff,” says Ninn. “They [Gray] hijacked the websites and Netscape Solutions actually contacted the FBI for us. But it’s too premature to talk about it.”
Off the record, Ninn hints at some unreported elements of the story that makes it much bigger than it appears as far as a federal case is concerned.
“But we’re so in the early stages of this. Essentially they’re looking at things that John was convicted of twice before.”
Gray, Ninn notes, spent time in Boron because he made false statements to win a government contract from the US Navy. Gray had also served time on another charge of bouncing checks.
“John had told the government that he had fifteen crews of people working, which he didn’t,” says Ninn. “This was his first government contract. What he would do is have a crew working and he would roll crews over on properties that he owned that weren’t being worked on. They would leave and he would have half the crew break off and go to the next location. So they would think he had all those crews when he only had one.”
“Basically he said he had more assets than he actually had,” Ninn continues, noting that this is the same way Gray sold him a bill of goods.
“When I signed a contract with him, it was the understanding that there was a full legal team in-house- there is not,” Ninn points out.
But that was only one of the issues.
“I was taking the man at his word. Also if you wanted to rent John’s 30,000 square foot stage with a full lighting package, bigger than Playboy, it doesn’t exist.”
Ninn says there’s instance after instance of Gray-concocted fantasies.
“I went in the building the first time and he said he had a crew of 12 in his Internet Technology department,” Ninn adds.
“When I got there, there was only one guy. Ask him how big his graphics arts department was? None of this existed.”
From the first day that Ninn went to the Norco office he realized that he had been suckered.
“My thoughts were that maybe everything hadn’t been brought in house yet,” Ninn rationalized.
“As time went on and people stopped being paid, the more I released there had never been a legal department and there would never be one. One of the final blows was when the city came in to inspect the officers and we all had to run and hide.”
According to Ninn, all this information is no longer hearsay but a matter of public record.
“Then he stood in front of my five contract stars and told everyone including their management that every one of them would be on billboards within a month. He doesn’t own Spearmint Rhino in Las Vegas. It’s a lie. And on and on it goes.”
Ninn also talks about the situation involving attorneys for artist Michael Parkes. Gray allegedly counterfeited a number of Parkes’ paintings and has them hanging in the Ninn Worx_ SR corporate office.
“There are some 38 pictures that John duplicated from a book and put his logo into the man’s artwork,” says Ninn. “They are livid and very aware of it.”
Ninn says his first thought was there wasn’t something right about the pictures that they look blurred.
“John told me he did it and asked if he should add some Rhino elements. I said are you nuts? This is the man’s work. You don’t take a man’s vision and craft it any way you want."
Ninn says similar instances of Gray's fancy footwork occurred involving photographers Helmut Newton and Earl Miller.
“He [Gray] has a total disregard for artist,” observes Ninn. “With Earl he had to settle out of court and there was a gag order. Earl sued him and won. He basically said to Earl give me your hard drive and let me look at your stuff. I’ll pay you for imagery I use in my clubs. He got the hard drive, printed the pictures, hung them in the club and never paid Earl."
"He’s done the same thing with Parkes, a world class painter. I was contacted on it. I won’t lie in a court of law. There’s 38 pictures of Michael Parkes’ work throughout the office area.”
“The man doesn’t live in a world like the rest of us,” observes Ninn.
“That should be seen by his statements. They say with people who go to Boron, they never go back because they get educated there. They learn. They become better criminals. John said that was the best time he’s ever spent in his life as far as learning.”
“This is deeper than any story that’s ever come through the adult industry,” reflects Ninn.
“Our wealth is nothing compared to John Gray’s. If you took Steve Orenstein and Steve Hirsch and five of the top wealthiest men in our industry they wouldn’t come close to Mr. Gray’s wealth. But at the same time they don’t carry the burdens that Mr. Gray does.”
“He’s wealthy and successful but for some reason if he made $100 million he has to tell you he made $200 million. If he has one person in the IT dept., it has to be twenty. I’m sure he sees a legal department and that it exists. The man does not live in the same world the rest of us do.”
I ask Ninn how Gray compares to Elliot Segal, Ninn’s former boss from years ago in the adult business. Segal had something of a reputation for colorful behavior especially when it came to money.
“Not even in the same boat,” answers Ninn. “He’d eat Elliot Segal for breakfast.”
Ninn says Gray flies around on a private jet and would know because he’s been on it.
“He has money, it’s just that he has a total disregard for people.”
Asked why Gray with all that money to begin with would screw him, Ninn says, “they’re used to making money with no effort- in our business it’s an effort to make money and manage five contract stars. There has to be an infrastructure to do what we do. John once said even if they’re stealing from me I make money.”
One of Ninn’s major issues with Gray was the fact that vendors and employees weren’t being paid.
“My understanding is that he’s trying to get people paid as quickly as he can before we go into court,” says Ninn.
According to Ninn, there were 47 instances of late payments to people. Ninn also recalls going to Gray telling him that people needed to be paid.
“He said Michael, you got to understand, if you want to be wealthy you don’t pay anybody. And I couldn’t go to bed at night knowing that Chris King has a daughter and he can’t fly home to see her because we haven’t paid him. At 55 you answer to someone bigger than John Gray. I can’t be morally bankrupt with this. They basically told me I was not a team player because I said those things. They said I had to do that if I wanted to survive in the Rhino corporate structure."
“Some people ultimately took over eight months to be paid," says Ninn. "John’s whole theory is that most people won’t make it through court.”
Ninn cites another tragic instance where the guy who built the company booth for the AEE trade show was owed $30,000. He didn’t have enough money to hire an attorney and, thus, went to small claims for $7500.
“He got a judgment for that,” says Ninn. “John’s theory is that he’d pay that amount out of $30,000 any day. That’s why he’s a wealthy, wealthy man.”
“I heard that whole January show was a fiasco,” I tell Ninn.
“It was a nightmare,” he agrees. “I had my contract stars doubled up in rooms while Gray, Kathy Bircher and other Spearmint Rhino people are staying in $4,000 and $7,000 a night suites. And it went on my bottom line. I was promised I would only pay one-third of the booth. I ended up getting the full hit of the bill- $600,000. That’s why I’m $2.2 M in debt.”
According to Ninn, this whole deal was an attempt to grab the Ninn catalogue as a “diamond ring” for Dyanna Lauren.
“That was to hold his marriage together and give him something to do. I was the patsy. When she walked anyway [Lauren reportedly gets $65,000 a month in alimony] there was no more need for me, and the thing was how do we get rid of Michael.”
Ninn tells me in his catalogue he must have at least 400 solo girl scenes which Gray now has on the SpearmintGirls website.
Gray now has Ninn’s entire catalogue.
“I got locked out of the building, and as soon as he had full control of it in his possession is when he let me go,” explains Ninn. “It’s odd it didn’t happen before that.”
Oddly enough, Ninn says now is one of the best times of his life.
“It is the first time in 16 years that I’m doing stuff that I’m enjoying,” he says.
Besides doing web design for his new IAMNINN website, Ninn is seriously considering corporation consulting work.
“I’m sort of a techie.”
Weeks ago, Ninn posed 10 questions Gray should be held accountable to answer.
www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=28726
“A reporter for the Las Vegas Review Journal has been trying to ask those of Mr. Gray but Mr. Gray won’t come to the phone,” says Ninn.
I then asked Ninn what really happened in his distribution deal with Red Light District.
“David Joseph was going through his own problems,” he replies.
“He was collecting our money and using our money to pay his bills and hoping that things would get better. It never did. They ended up losing the big building and losing their distributorship. I think David was naïve to think the Paris Hilton money would last forever. It didn’t. They went through it. Our collectibles ended up going to pay his overhead. It never got right and we settled. We were almost into it for $700,000 and settled for $300,000.”
“Basically two bad deals in a row.”
“It kicked my ass,” admits Ninn.“I’ve never been a business man. I’ve always looked for someone to be the business side of what I do. I just haven’t found it.”
At its height, Ninn Worx had 14 or 15 employees.
“I’m almost relieved that I don’t have that right now,” Ninn states. “I feel kind of good not being in that treadmill and not hustling.”
According to Ninn, Ninn Worx_SR has also decided to bring in other directors.
“Mr. Gray has a tendency to believe that any artist can do what any other artist can do.”
