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Air America

Not very on-topic, but.... Prof. Bainbridge has an interesting post on the legal woes of Air America, with an attached complaint filed to start a lawsuit against them, by a station on which they leased time.

Their arrangments sound, well, quite sleazy. VERY sleazy. As Michelle Malkin has documented, when they started going down the tubes they were propped up by a big loan from a nonprofit (for which one of their officers was also an officer) that diverted about half its cash on hand from its charitable purposes into financing the radio show.

In this latest affair, the plaintiff radio station has been stiffed for about a quarter million. Air America responded with nasty personal attacks on the station's president (including posting his phone no. on their website), sued the station (getting a temporary restraining order forcing it to keep broadcasting, unpaid -- which was set aside once it got to a hearing, with the court awarding damages to the station instead). The judge as much as said Air America's suit was a fraud on the court ... found it entirely frivolous, that Air America had falsely claimed it had been paying its bills and the banks had fouled them up, etc.

Then, to try to escape the debt and judgment, Air America's investors created a new company, shifted all of Air America's assets to it and tried to run the network from there. The station is now suing for the right to enforce its judgment against the new company.