When jewelry companies Alex and Annie tried to redefine their product line in 2023, executives turned to LA designer Pamela Love.
Along with her own brand of the same name, Ai worked with J. Crew, Sinora and Topshop. With Alex and Annie, she will be “creative director” and royalty, which costs around $21,000 a month.
Now, Ai takes Alex and Annie’s owner to court, and the company sells her designs, but owes royalties and other expenses up to $6 million, with unpaid consulting fees of over $200,000.
In a lawsuit filed in New York on Wednesday, Love and her lawyers allege that while they were trying to collect unpaid money, the owners of jewelry brands, including a company owned by L.A. celebrity lawyer Mark Jelagos, engaged in “shell games,” sorted out “cooperative foreclosures” and settled out other creditworthies to pay “cooperative foreclosures.”
The suit is named Bathing Club LLC, the two owners of the jewelry company. This claims to be managed by Geragos.
“Pamela’s love begins arbitration against Alex and Anni to retrieve unpaid consulting fees and sales royalties….Alex and Anni’s ultimate beneficial owners Lyndon Lee and Mark Jelagos have carried out a long-standing conspiracy to render Alex and Anni’s judgment evidence,” the Love case said.
Neither Jelagos nor Lee responded immediately to claims or requests for comment.
The lawsuit shook the wider business ventures of Jelagos from representing Lyle and Eric Menendez, including the broader business ventures of lawyers, including Los Angeles magazines, restaurants and hotels in California and New York, as well as ownership of minority stakes in Alex and Annie. Jewelry companies have been struggling in recent years, including bankruptcy in 2021.
After starting with Alex and Anni in 2023, Love received initial payments, but for the last 10 months he got nothing. She designed jewelry for Alex and Annie, which was released last summer. Under the three-year agreement, Love was eligible for up to $2 million a year for royalties for products she designed or “creatively contributed,” but according to the lawsuit he never received payments or sales reports that allowed her to determine her royalty.
In the spring of 2024, she began arbitration to raise unpaid funds.
“Alex and Annie did not deny that Pamela loves substantial fees under the contract,” the lawsuit said. During the arbitration that Alex and Annie were “trying to find a way to pay Pamela,” the company’s former lawyer “admitted.”
Arbitrator, former LA Superior Court Judge Catherine Chilton, said he had love and was “uncontroversial” that he had not been paid for in 10 months. In the December decision, Chilton requested that Alex and ANI LLC post a $12,000 cost, along with $208,333.40 security for consulting work.
Chilton stated that the company’s “only justification” of not paying love was because its poor financial position and “evidently because its assets were transferred to a third party.”
Love’s suits also advocate years of efforts to move assets to make it difficult for creditors like Love to collect.
Among these steps, in February 2023, The Bathing Club, a company associated with Zelagos, recorded security benefits for all Alex and ANI assets. In 2024, shortly after Love began her arbitration, Lee, who owns 65% of the jewelry company, assigned a lien for all the company’s assets to the bathing club.
“The transfer was from insiders to insiders,” the lawsuit said. “There are two insider liens on Alex and Anni’s assets, and there is no defense against Pamela Love’s claims…Geragos caused the Bathing Club and Alex and Anni’s assets on or around July 24, 2024.”
The lawsuit alleges that the foreclosure was “part of a fake to deceive creditors” and did not disrupt business operations.
“The only thing that was being seized was a name,” the lawsuit said. “Alex and Annie employees were ‘layoffs’ and ‘re-hired’ on the same day. ”
Love’s Suit throws foreclosure as part of the “bankruptcy defense” that Geragos attempted, whilst Jeragos also serves as an attorney for Alex and Annie in the arbitration. In an email in September, Geragos indicated that board members would “close the entity” and that the company’s CEO, Prita Kumar, had “not worked for Alex and Anni since July when the lenders seized.”
During the arbitration, independent board member Larry Meyer declared that he “controls the orderly closure of the company” under perjury punishment.
However, according to the lawsuit, Alex and Anni’s online business continued, and in the fall, Love’s managers were able to purchase rings designed from Alex and Anni’s website.
“Pamela Love was not paid for the royalty for this sale,” the lawsuit states.
And earlier this year, Kumar, who showed that Geragos is not part of the company, posted on LinkedIn that Alex and Anni are “in tears” and are looking to hire them. One position she wrote was “a leader who can make money for millions of ownership clients…”
Love Suit claims that piloting is pre-planned. As proof, Ai spoke about her conversation with Alex and Annie’s Chief Creative Officer.
“‘You’ll be switched to another company and we’ll all be paid [Geragos’] According to the lawsuit, the best creative officer told Ai.
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