Posted by April MacIntyre Dec 23, 2010, 19:10 GMT
Financially precipitous actor Stephen Baldwin has sued super deep pockets actor Kevin Costner over securities fraud and misrepresentation.
Duck lips- Stephen Baldwin - 5th Annual DogCatemy Celebrity Gala - Cipriani Wall Street - New York, NY, USA © Marco Sagliocco / PR Photos
The Born-again Baldwin is claiming Costner pulled some trickery by making him part with Baldwin Bucks in an investment deal that went awry, a Costner-sponsored company that has technology to separate oil from water, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The suit was filed in the Bayou state of Louisiana with federal court, as Baldwin says claims Costner and his business partners made a lucrative deal with BP for his oil-filtration system, then bought out Baldwin's shares while keeping him in the dark about the sale to BP.
According to the legal papers filed, Baldwin says that in April he became a 10 percent partner in Costner's invention. A month later, Baldwin and others agreed to a joint venture called Ocean Therapies Solution to market the technology from Costner's company, CINC, to BP, the lawsuit says. After disagreements, Baldwin says he sold his shares, unaware that CINC had just received an $18 million dollar deposit from BP. A day after the sale, BP purchased units of the CINC technology, totaling over $52 million in gross, the lawsuit says.
Baldwin claims that Costner and his associates duped him and misrepresented the status of a deal to sell the contraption to BP to earn a bigger profit. Baldwin is seeking $3.8 million in damages.
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