HE WAS PORN TO RUN
By ERIC MOSKOWITZ and DAVID K. LI
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A PORN EMPIRE FALLS:
Seth Warshavsky is on the lam in Thailand, fleeing creditors like Pamela Anderon and Tommy Lee (below).
- Lawrence Schwartzwald
December 15, 2002 -- Just two years ago, Seth Warshavsky seemed to be on top of the world.
His Web sex company, Internet Entertainment Group, was touted as one of cyberspace's few moneymaking ventures. An initial public offering seemed imminent, and the entrepreneur's youthful face graced the pages of publications like the Wall Street Journal and Time.
But now, the man once dubbed the Bill Gates of porn is on the lam in Thailand, running from angry creditors and federal investigators who want to speak with him, sources told The Post.
Warshavsky's Seattle-based company was ordered by a federal judge in Los Angeles Tuesday to pay Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee $741,000 for marketing the couple's infamous sex video without their permission.
David Weeks, who represented Anderson, Lee and Poison frontman Bret Michaels in sex-tape lawsuits against IEG, called the ruling "a moral victory" because his clients would probably never see a dime of the judgment.
"We would love for [Warshavsky] to pop up, so we can help with his finances," Weeks quipped.
He can certainly use a hand.
IEG is now out of business and its once lucrative Web site, www.ientertain.com, is down. IEG's phones are not working, and numerous attempts to reach Warshavsky were unsuccessful.
Creditors, including Lycos Inc. and former IEG employees, also are looking to collect checks that are long overdue.
It's a stark reversal of fortune for Warshavsky, who appeared in the pages of glossy magazines like Time and Wired, playing up the fact that he was a 20-something millionaire many times over. He boasted about his $500,000 condo, and claimed he was, at Internet-speed, becoming a "Seth," the way "Bob" is Penthouse's Bob Guccione and "Hugh" is Playboy's Hugh Hefner.
The media hype hit a frenzied peak in the fall of 1998, when IEG published nude photographs of radio shrink Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
Dr. Laura filed a lawsuit to stop publication of the pictures, dubbed Dr. Laura's Dirty Dozen, but was unsuccessful.
By that time, according to press reports, IEG's earnings had hit $15 million on revenues of $50 million, for charging to access such sites as girlsgirlsgirls.com and sexfifthavenue.com.
The Wall Street Journal, in a page-one profile in early 2000, even insinuated that IEG may be the one of the few dot-com success stories. An initial public offering was discussed, and porn was touted as the Internet's sole profit-making enterprise.
Warshavsky even spoke before the U.S. Senate on how to regulate adult content on the Web. But by the fall of 2000, federal agencies began investigating Warshavsky, now 29. That's when things get hazy.
His luxury apartment was publicly auctioned off this past spring and IEG, one of 44 companies he incorporated in Delaware, was listed as a "surrender" as of December 2002 - meaning it was defunct - according to an incorporation search.
An IEG official said during a recent court deposition that "Warshavsky was personally under investigation and all IEG documents had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury," according to Seattle Weekly.
A spokesman in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle declined to confirm or deny whether there is an existing investigation.
Still, former business partners defend Warshavsky, saying he is a young, intelligent guy who has not been criminally charged with anything.
"Seth is not on the lam," said Vivid Entertainment Group president William Asher, who runs an adult broadcast and video company and had a business relationship with Warshavsky. "He is doing business in Thailand."
Asher wouldn't specify what kind of business, adding that it was "similar" to his IEG Web sex operation.
Derek Newman, staff counsel for IEG from 1997 to 1999 and formerly Warshavsky's personal attorney, would say only that "Warshavsky would be great if he was just simply an idea man. He has great ideas."
Calls to Warshavsky's current attorney, Gil Levy, were not returned.
Asher blamed the press for Warshavsky's troubles. He told The Post that it was "a misnomer for the press to say that adult entertainment companies were immune from the dot-com crash in the first place," and that IEG was just one of a host of other Internet companies that went under.
When pressed that Warshavsky's disappearance is suspect at best, Asher said, "It's smoky, yes, but there is no proof of wrongdoing there."
Why Thailand? "He likes Thailand," Asher said. "There are a lot of pretty girls there." |
