Shawn Walker Responds to Claims of Misappropriation of Funds in Pacific Bankruptcy Filings
By Staff
Dec 18, 2008, 06:58
********* contacted Shawn Walker - now of the RPL and manager of Camp Pendleton Paintball Park - to respond to various claims found in the court records of the Pacific Paintball LLC (NPPL, XPSL, PB2ZX, Xtreme Paintball Fields, Camp Pendleton Paintball). Specifically, those allegations claim that Walker misappropriated "not less than" a total of $110,885.00 through the use of corporate funds for various personal expenses, such as airline tickets, car rentals, equipment purchases and also alleges that he or associates "hacked into" the Camp Pendleton Paintball Park website in order to obtain information and to re-direct traffic to a new website under his management.
The internet forums PBNation here, P8ntballer here, other forums and blogs have been giving Walker a pretty rough ride over the past week or so - many essentially saying that they believe the allegations and many holding him personally accountable for the bankruptcy.
Mr. Walker was asked by ********* to respond to these allegations in general as well as to the specific claims. His response, reproduced in its entirety, is below:
Statement from Shawn Walker
As the paperwork has now been officially filed for the bankruptcy of Pacific Paintball and its related companies some accusations within the paperwork have been made against me.
I want to first be very clear that these accusations are just that, accusations. There is no verdict of guilt or even proof of information but rather just un-based claims. The bankruptcy document filed was created from and behalf of Pacific Paintball. There is no legal precedent that shows these as statement of fact and shouldn�t be interpreted that way.
That being said, I don't write this to change people's minds or convince people to believe one thing or the other. I actually find it a bit comical that I am such a hot topic for discussion. I only present another side of the story. As there are always two sides of the story I encourage everyone to weigh the information accordingly and form whatever opinion they want.
Directly, I will say again. I did not steal from the company nor did I cause the company to become bankrupt.
The reality of the financial situation of the company was my personal money and credit was intertwined within all aspects of the business. When I was let go it was like a divorce and we had to un tangle all the pieces. My lawyers were working with Pacific's lawyers to accomplish this before the bankruptcy. When someone asks if I paid for some personal expenses with company money, the direct answer is yes I did because the "company money" was actually my personal money (my personal credit card) that wasn't being reimbursed by the company
Here are a few counter facts to directly dispute the claims made in the BK doc.
1) To the claim I spent company money for personal expenses. In reality I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of my personal money to operate Pacific Paintball. Over 200k alone on one of my personal credit cards. 90% of all the plane tickets we booked were on my personal card. Sometimes I was reimbursed from the company for these expenses, sometimes I was not. The last 3 months I was working for the company I had racked up over 30k of event expenses on my personal credit card that were never reimbursed to me. Sometimes records weren't kept perfectly but our Controller had direct access to my personal credit card account and paid bills directly to that account.
2) Most of all accounts and loans the company opened were in my name. Since the company didn't have any credit I had to secure these accounts. Car leases for other employees, equipment accounts, cell phone accounts, venue contracts, etc. etc. Because of the BK I am now forced to either pay off these company expenses myself or suffer the consequences on my personal credit history.
3) To the claim I over compensated myself for car and health reimbursements. How is this possible? I didn�t set up the Health care plans; someone else did with the approval of the investors. Same with the car reimbursement. How could I over reimburse myself when the checks were coming from our Controller and approved by the investors and CEO?
4) To the claim I somehow "hacked" into the Camp Pendleton website. I did nothing of the sort. I created a new website and hired the company that built the first website for CP to create a similar website for me. It has to look similar because all pricing had to stay the same as per my contract with the base. I made a new logo and am using that new logo on the site. In fact, since I have been operating the park I have had to honor reservations that were made even though deposits were paid to Pacific and I will see none of that money.
I have talked to many people that are owed money from Pacific Paintball. The way I understand it when a Trustee is assigned he/she will determine how to liquidate the assets and then how to pay the outstanding creditors.
I plan to submit the money the company owes me to the Trustee just like the dozens of others.
In the end there is one basic reality that everyone needs to understand. Pacific Paintball went bankrupt. Nothing said by me or others will change that. No one person caused the multi-million dollar company to fail. It was a perfect storm of multiple inputs that ultimately did the company in. For those that care about our industry, it's time to move on and start working on what we can do to be part of the solution not the problem. There are many quality regional leagues across the nation and one quality national league in the PSP. Support those leagues and show your support for our sport.
I am always willing to talk to anyone and answer any questions people may have. I have nothing to hide from. I am working hard to help turn this industry around.
I can be contacted at
shawn@***********
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