With the apparent FBI investigation of John L Gray, CEO of Spearmint Rhino, www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=29211 Gray allegedly stole domain names belonging to Michael and Q Ninn. One of them was JohnLGray.com which Gray subsequently pulled down because he said the site maligned him. Here’s what the site had to say:
From the AFY archives: Porn Valley- Michael Ninn is telling his side of the split between himself and Spearmint Rhino on www.imninn.com. [The info was later trnasferred to johnlgray.com]
John Gray of Spearmint Rhino has gone on record to call it a dissension stemming from different philosophies of where to take the company, while
Ninn gives a very different impression.
“Mr. Gray approached me to help his company image,” Ninn writes. “We got to talking about my business and Mr. Gray offered to help in exchange for my imagery. At that time Mr. Gray stated, ‘I will never take your library. That is yours and not part of the deal.’
“When it came time to sign the contract, the library was included. Along with numerous other issues benefiting Mr. Gray. He swore up and down that this was only for contract purposes and he would never exercise any of them. Me, being a very trusting person, accepted his guarantee and signed. Boy, was I wrong, I feel this was just the beginning of the half truths, deceits and flat out lies.”
Among the e-mails, interjections, musings, footnotes and statements Ninn uses to present his case, it’s daunting to put this story together cohesively. But we’ll try.
Amid rumblings that he was in bad financial straits, which may or may not have been prompted from his distribution deal with Red Light, Ninn merged with Spearmint Rhino July of 2007.
As part of the merger, Ninn Worx_relocated from Porn Valley to a new facility in Norco, California which would house their corporate offices, club management, production and distribution arms of the new company. The official move took place on Friday, July 27.
Gray did a lot of bragging about the new office digs comparing them to either Playboy or Hustler. But Ninn thought otherwise.
“They don’t blow Flynt’s offices away,” says Ninn in hindsight.
“I was more confused than super impressed. Why Norco and not Beverly Hills, Century City or Los Angeles? With all the money this man makes? Why does all the art work in the SR Norco office seem some what pixilated and blurry… Why you ask? Unlike the art collection that decorates the Hustler Office, Mr.Gray’s art collection of Michael Parkes’ works were duplicated and hung without permission from the artist.”
On his behalf, Gray said that among the company’s resources were in-house accounting executives and a legal team; a large IT staff which maintains in-house web services and programming; a graphic arts department; a construction and architectural design division; and a full film studio with state-of-the-art equipment headed by Carl Wachter, the longtime Penthouse staff photographer.
According to Ninn, this was not the case.
Ninn says the “large IT department” consisted of two people, the arts department consisted of one person, and there was no in house legal team that he ever saw.
“Carl Wachter was fired shortly after I arrived,” Ninn adds. “The studio was [subsequently] shut down along with my office by the City of Norco because Mr.Gray and company somehow forgot to take out the necessary building permits.”
“I feel their accounting executives know only one phrase ‘the check is in the mail,’” adds Ninn.
Gray went on to describe in an interview how the merger cleaned up Ninn’s past bills.
“If Mr.Gray cleaned up the bills then why I’m I being sued by FB Production and others?” Ninn asks.
“Why did Ninn Worx go from $150k debt to $2.2 million in debt with half of it still not paid? Why has Heather Veer, Penthouse Pet of the Year & former Ninn Worx contract star still not been paid or given a proper accounting of what’s rightfully owed her?”
Veer wasn’t the only one.
“As time went on I began to see the real Mr. Gray,” writes Ninn. “I began to feel that Ninn Worx was not purchased for of all the reasons Mr.Gray had given me and others … but it was a way to save his failing marriage and when his marriage failed and Dyanna [Lauren] left him there was really no need for me any longer. Now, what to do with Mr.Ninn?…. I have very few problems with the contract I signed, I have a problem with how Mr.Gray sold me on him and his company that eventually would end with Mr. Gray owning my catalog of work.”
The first Michael Ninn directed production under the merger label was scheduled for release that September. Ninn talks about a meeting that was held on September 24.
“During a meeting in the conference room at the SR headquarters, Mr. Gray stated, in front of all five contract stars, their agents, a number of SR employees and myself, eluding to the fact that he owned the Las Vegas Spearmint Rhino and promised to put the contract stars on all billboards, taxi cabs, playing cards, etc. to promote their careers. None of it ever happened!”
By October there were rumblings of disenchantment and the feeling that Ninn had been screwed.
So much was determined by an interview I had with Otto Bauer last October. Bauer had a distribution deal with the company which ended abruptly. It was a sign of what was to come.
www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=28733
Stories of company unrest persisted, mostly in whispers. And there came more drama when AEE rolled around. Ninn had some serious questions about the money being spent for the company booth and voiced them in e-mails.
The Grand Vizier also chimed in with the following:
“There was also a big boondoggle regarding the handling of the contract girls for the AVN Award show red carpet. No one knew what was going on. No one was talking to nobody. And then John Gray insisted that he had to be on the red carpet. And Gray wanted to be at the AVN table instead of his own. He was accommodated. It was a comedy.”
Then when contract girls Jana Jordan and Nikki Kane left the fold in March, and performer Cassidey followed suit in April.
John Gray in an AVN interview, explained the matter thusly to the extent that he felt contract girls were simply not worth the investment in today’s clime.
“When I got into this business, the whole issue of exclusivity seemed kind of puzzling to me,” Gray said.
“Today, contract girls are unknown to some extent, comparatively speaking, by the general public. If we can get the typical girl to work for $1,200 a scene, and if our movies typically have three scenes with her, that’s $3,600. And if we’re going to do six movies with her in a year, as in the typical contract girl, are we really benefiting by an exclusive contract with a girl to the tune of $40, $50, $60,000 more than you could get the typical girl for a per-scene rate?”
Gray says his head went askew when Ninn went out and paid contract girls two and a half to three times their day rate.
“To me, the contract girl is only beneficial to us if we promote the living hell out of her, which is a lot of time and effort, and we’re largely pushing movies like The Four, which is more production than artist. You need very good girls, but in The Four, those names aren’t carrying it.”
“Cassidey’s a great girl, all those five that Michael had are great,” Gray concluded. “I just couldn’t justify in my own mind the difference in money over and beyond the day rate. Particularly in today’s market, where everybody’s selling fewer out the door and for a lesser price, I didn’t think it made sense.”
Ninn just says: “I would like to comment on this but all I can do is shake my head in disbelief and hope AVN is paying Peter Warren & David Sullivan a whole lot of money to listen to this….”
Besides the issue over the contract girls, Ninn was battling Gray and Kathy Vercher, president and COO of Ninn Worx_SR over a $1,500 payment owed to his still photographer Chris King on an invoice from January. Ninn was fighting a lot of battles regarding payments or lack thereof to his people but that was the one that stood out.
Ninn explains how he had to pay King out of his own pocket, and then went into Vercher’s and Gray’s offices “to say this shit’s got to stop.”
It was then that Ninn was told he wasn’t a team player and two days later on May 30, 2008, he was locked out of his own office.
But on June 4, 2008, AVN ran a story saying that Ninn took a hiatus when, in fact, Ninn had been the victim of a palace coup.
That Friday, May 30, Ninn received the following correspondence from Amy Perchalski, Executive Assistant for Spearmint Rhino Consulting Worldwide, Inc.:
“Everyone must be out of the offices today at 5:00 pm sharp. The offices will be closed over the weekend and will not be accessible to anyone. Rick will be doing some electrical work at the offices tonight and over the weekend. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Ninn bought the story.
“The odd thing about this I was told the electricians were coming in to do some wiring and we could not enter the building over the weekend,” Ninn relates.
“They know I work weekends and had been working weekends for the last five month trying to finished the movie The Four. I went by the office a couple of times over the weekend and thought it strange there was no one there. I even questioned Kathy Vercher and was told they probably were there very early. She didn’t know their schedule.
“I bought into the electrician’s story because, earlier that week we were told to leave the building or hide in the back because the City of Norco building inspector had entered the SR building and that we were not to be in the offices because SR had not taking the proper permits with the city to build Ninn Worx_SR office or (they had not taking building permits at all).
“As Kathy was locking me out of the office, John Gray, owner of SR, is sending me an email telling me not to worry about anything.”
Even when his office was being taken away from him, this is what Gray e-mailed Ninn:
“Michael, you need some guidance, reassurrment [sic] and maybe just to talk things through. I simply wanted to be here for you to bounce things around with and not feel alone or it is all business. Feel free to call anytime and I mean that. Most crap is easy to talk through and stick to – simply not worth sending your mind in head spins over.”
On June 16, Ninn gave a statement to AVN.
“This is definitely headed to court,” Ninn told AVN. “I am no longer working for the company.”
“As part of the deal, Ninn Worx_SR owns the name Michael Ninn as well as the Ninn Worx content library,” the AVN article went on to say.
“We welcome [a court case] at this point,” Gray also told AVN. “We would rather have organization and order than arguments.”
While Ninn remains a forty-nine percent shareholder in Ninn Worx_SR, both sides confirm that the director is no longer welcome at NWSR headquarters in Norco, Calif.
Ninn has relinquished control of his epic adult fantasy The Four, slated for release through NWSR this summer, and now intends to start his own company using the name IMNINN for contractual purposes.
Gray also described the split as a matter of economics.
With Ninn Worx_SR more than $1 million in debt, Gray said, the company could no longer afford to spend time or money disagreeing with Ninn.
The IMNINN site goes on to state: “While he weighs his legal options, Ninn is already laying plans for his IMNINN venture. He is already working on a script to star some of the former Ninn Worx_SR contract girls and preparing to launch an Internet presence for the new company.
“I need to get back to making pictures that are more about the art of what I do,” Ninn states.
“I’ve become a mill of content and a relatively wealthy man from it…but somewhere along the line, I lost who Michael Ninn was supposed to be originally.”