Tuesday, November 20, 2007

AP finally runs our exclusive Baras lawsuit story

Eight days after Tabloid Baby broke the story, some pisher at the Associated Press has turned in a version-- and doesn't give us or Our Man Elli any credit.
Big surprise.
Schmuck!



For the second time in three days, the AP has picked up a report that appeared exclusively on Tabloid Baby, rewrote it without credit to or mention of the source or backstory, and posted it so it is already being picked up around the world:

BOSTON - The founder of Israel’s financially struggling professional baseball league is being sued by a Florida woman who claims he defrauded her of the $275,000 she had invested in his bagel business, and instead used the money for personal expenses and to support the league.
Natalie Blacher is asking for the return of her investment along with interest and attorney’s fees in the lawsuit against Lawrence Baras, of Brookline, Mass. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston in September.
Blacher claims that she bought $275,000 worth of stock in SJR Foods Inc. after she was assured by Baras that the company was financially sound. Baras was the company’s president...

On November 12, we wrote:

The rumoured financial problems and improprieties clouding the future of the Israel Baseball League and its founder exploded to the surface today with the details of a federal lawsuit filed against Boston-based businessman Larry Baras.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts and obtained exclusively by Tabloid Baby, alleges fraud, securities fraud and breach of fiduciary duty on the part of the embattled founder and managing director of Israel's first Major League-style professional baseball league.
Baras has been in headlines in recent months due to allegations that he owes money to players and vendors involved in the league's first season, and to the frustration of many, has been silent on the question of whether the lBL will return for Season Two. He has yet to address serious questions abut the IBL's management in wake of the disturbing August 28th report on the first season by Our Man Elli In Israel.
In the lawsuit filed September 24th, Natalie Blacher of Dade County, Florida sued Lawrence S. Baras and SJR Foods, Inc., claiming that the founder of the Israel Baseball League duped her out of $275,000 that was supposed to go into a successful bagel company, but instead went to “his personal living expenses or expenses which should be charged to IBL.”
Blacher contends that she spent $275,000 to buy stock in Baras’ SJR Foods on Baras’ word that the company was generating $10 million per year, only to discover that the company was $1,500,000 in debt and that despite his claims, Baras was spending all his time—and possibly stockholders’ money-- on the IBL...
Credit was due, no? Hey, maybe we can ask That Putz Greenberg.

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