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"Money is the sign of liberty. To curse money is to curse liberty--to curse life, which is nothing, if it be not free." -- de Gourmont

Friday, June 1, 2012

AVN on Chris Mallick

From AVN:

No matter how good the 2010 documentary Exxit: Life After Porn, since re-released and re-titled as After Porn Ends, may or may not be, the story behind it obfuscates any true value it may have had. That is because the producer of the film, Christopher Mallick, remains one of the more reviled individuals in the annals of the adult online industry. More than a year after he made an ignominious exit from porn as CEO of ePassporte, a PayPal for adult, just the mention of Mallick's name is enough to leave people grasping for the words to express their disgust.

and

For many people in this industry, Mallick is irrevocably tainted by his departure from ePassporte, not least because of the manner of his exit and the utter disregard he seemed to have for webmasters left holding the bag. Instead of facing the music like a man, Mallick refused to reply to requests for comment, instead retreating to make a self-serving feature film titled Middle Men, itself a loser that returned a fraction of its cost but which opened the door for Mallick's new career in Hollywood.

...

Today, even Mallick's former associates are trying to distance themselves from having had any association with him. AVN has recently received urgent pleas asking that we remove stories from the website that document those relationships. They said people remain so angry at having lost money that they are venting their anger on past colleagues. What a shame that more than a year after the dissolution of ePassporte, the fallout is not only still with us, but seems to be expanding.

The AVN article didn't mention who these past colleagues were, but we all know who was in bed with Mallick and helped him cover up that big mess that ePassporte turned out to be: Shaliza Somani (Mallick's sidekick who ran One Star Media, Inc and has in the past been accused of stealing domain names from a former employer.), Stephanie Posteraro (assistant to Shaliza Somani and the one Gregory Elias said to contact at ePassporte when people contacted Elias about their missing ePassporte funds), Billy Sorrentino (Marketing Executive at 24-7 Commercial Marketing and was partying with Mallick in Cabo when the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank froze the ePassporte virtual Visa accounts.),...

Mallick and those associated with him are learning a lesson the hard way: the internet does not forget. His name has already become a synonym for theft, fraud and scams. (See the Urban Dictionary). In the mid-1990s, SAM Group, a health financing company which Mallick founded, filed for bankruptcy. A related lawsuit revealed a checkered history of personal tax liens, judgments and lawsuits involving Mallick. From the court docs:

Defendant provided plaintiffs with a report from a private investigator who had conducted a background check into SAM's principal, J. Christopher Mallick. Plaintiffs alleged that defendant redacted material adverse information about Mallick, including his bankruptcy, a number of civil suits pending against him, three tax liens, several lawsuits that had been decided against Mallick, Mallick's bad credit, and some second-hand critical comments about him. By withholding this information, plaintiffs alleged that defendant concealed Mallick's lack of "sound business, financial management and organization skills, sound judgment, character, honesty, commitment and diligence".

In the past, Mallick may have been able to hide his tracks, but in this day and age that's no longer the case. No matter how many emails his lawyers send to hosting companies or no matter how many much he tries to pretend that his critics are "crazies", the internet will never forget what he is or what he did. His name will forever remain associated with one of the biggest scams of the first decade of the 21st century.