Porn Valley- Dane owner Ed Cohen elected not to come into work Tuesday. Instead, Cohen placed a conference call from home and fired his staff which included Bob Blisten his VP of sales and Dana the bookkeeper.
Cohen told Blisten he’d keep Dane open a few more days to break down operations.
“And he refuses to pay me,” says Blisten. “I already called my lawyer.”
Blisten explains that he’s on straight commission and that Cohen owes him $2,000.
“He said I’m not going to pay you that- you cost me too much money and that I wasn’t selling enough new releases. He said it was all my fault – not his fault- and blamed me for everything.”
According to Blisten, Cohen got into his personal life on the issue because Blisten had been seeing Dana.
“That’s none of his fucking business,” says Blisten, indicating that all of this had been coming down for awhile.
“He’s mad because I’m dating her- it dosn’t affect me as far as business goes. He said he was going to shut things down. an let me and her go. He told Eddie [the warehouse guy] to break dowen shelves. He’ll keep him for a few days and who knows after that? I don’t know what his plans are but he definitely flipped out. He’s been mad at this and that. We moved to a new location three weeks ago. Business hasn’t been good. I’ve been talking to a lot of people and business isn’t good anywhere.”
“Legally I know he has to pay me and I may have to go through some hoops,” Blisten adds.
“He was extremely mean about this,” notes Blisten. “But there were never any benfits here, no vacation, no dental, nothing. But he feels he gave everybody a great job here. It’s a job, that’s all. That he would do something like this is pretty rotten.”
Blisten says he was getting paid every two weeks- the first and 15th- but Cohen said he wasn’t getting his last check.
“He’s a mean, vindictive person,” states Blisten. “He’s blamed me for all of his ills and downfall. Let’s face it, his product’s old. It’s hard stuff to sell.”