[Funkagenda]

"IM NOT A CROOK"


Article by Brandon Lambertson (Infamous) @ www.thepaintballagenda.blogspot.com. Couldn't have said better than what was written in this article.

Article is long, but detailed and VERY MUCH WORTH THE READ



" So the day has come. Actual legal filings have been posted on line at PBReserve.com that show who Shawn Walker really is. I knew I was going to take some heat for publicly calling Shawn Walker a thief without having any tangible evidence at first, but I also knew that regardless of if there ever actually was any proof available that people would accept, that I had to let people know the truth about what he had done so that he wouldn't be able to do it again. Of course, in true Walker fashion, he has already begun spinning a new web of lies in a few interviews and even in a written statement of his own on *********.com. It seems just when you think you have finally shed light on the matter, his magical smoke screen appears and it lays a fog over his otherwise transparent character. It baffles the mind at how someone who possesses such an uncanny ability to get people to believe in and follow him, would continually use it in such an unethical way. It's not like this is his first bull-**** ride in the screw you rodeo, it's just the first time he was publicly caught. He has a track record of screwing people over, but that uncanny ability he has, always sprung into action and somehow managed to cover everything up in the past. He is like a hybrid, idiot savant. I shouldn't say that, it actually takes a bit of quick thinking and memory retention to be able to tell such intriguing and believable lies.

Unfortunately and fortunately, too much emphasis has been put on the money Shawn stole. I pressed that issue at first so that people would know his true character, I was not trying say that, that was the only reason PP filed chapter 7. There was obviously many mistakes made along the way that caused that company to fail. It wasn't just the thieving that put the squeeze on the company. People NEED to realize that, but they also need to understand that it was ALL Shawn's fault in the end. Shawn blew tons of money on bad decisions and his ego during his time there. We are easily talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. People also need to realize that Pacific Paintball was in COMPLETE control of Shawn Walker (up until the last few months when Scott came in). That means that no matter how much you don't want to believe that one person could be responsible for the collapse of a multi million dollar backed company.......he can be. Shawn did the hiring, he set the salaries, he approved the spending on anything related to the events, he chose the venues, he set the budgets, he worked the sponsor contracts, he worked the hotel contracts etc. He oversaw or personally did everything himself. He honestly and literally had to answer to NO ONE. Now if you want to blame other people, then sure, you can. You can blame Bruce for not seeing who Shawn was in the beginning. You could blame him for giving Shawn complete control of his company. You can blame him for not checking up on Shawn with the finances. You can blame him for not listening at first to the people who came to him and told him that Shawn was up to no good and mishandling his company. You can blame the employees for not speaking up sooner. You can blame the few that helped cover up his actions in the beginning. You can blame the investors for not coming back for the next year. You can blame the economy for making it hard to find new investors to back the company when it was in need of a bailout. You can push the blame all over the place, but no matter how hard you try, it still all comes back to Shawn. Shawn duped Bruce. Shawn used the total control of the company to feed his ego and use it to his advantage. Shawn lied to Bruce and kept him thinking that all the spending was normal and everything was fine, which kept Bruce at bay and believing that Shawn was still the right guy for the job. Shawn hired the people who kept their mouth shut about what he was doing and strong armed the ones that seemed like threats, by firing others and or threatening to fire them. Shawn stole and mismanaged funds in such a way that investors no longer were comfortable putting money into a sinking ship. The only thing that can't be blamed on Shawn is the state of the economy.

Besides some of the smaller things like always getting the largest fully loaded SUV rental car during events, while Scott the CEO, would drive in economy compacts, or always having to have a suite during events instead of sleeping in a less expensive room like the rest of the staff and company executives did. (just to be fair, SOME were given to him by the hotels because the league was getting so many rooms, but that wasn't always the case), Shawn would take the staff out on extravagant outings and blow thousands of dollars at each of them. I went to one. It was a laser tag outing for the staff. The company paid for the games, the food, the drinks, everything. That bill was over $2,000. In Huntington Beach, he took out some of the staff to an upscale hotel restaurant where they ordered all the most expensive food. Everything from lobster, to steak and fancy deserts. The bill was over $3,000. Shawn constantly blew money like it was growing on trees. Up until about the middle of this year, Shawn was responsible for all the petty cash at events, both the XPSL (approx. $5,000 - $7,500) and the NPPL (approx. $10,000). That money was for the store register, registration, per diems, cash for supplies like Kinkos, Home Depot, etc. and every event when the money was reconciled at the end of the event, nothing added up when he was in charge of the money. Money was always missing. After Bruce and Scott took away the money from him and put my girlfriend Ashley in charge of it, everything besides a few mis-entered register inputs here and there, in the store, was accounted for down to mere pennies every event from then on.

One event last year, Shawn ordered around 20 extra portable tower lights after his event manager told him not to (an event manager he later fired due to "incompetence"). At $100 (average rental price) a day for approx. four days, that's $8,000 dollars wasted. I say wasted, because those extra lights never made it out of the bone-yard, where all the equipment is stored on site during events. Hotel contracts were done by Shawn in the beginning. (the league would enter contracts with hotels for discount rates for its staff and for players/teams with the understanding that the league was responsible to fill up a certain number of rooms, and if not, the league would have to pay a certain fee or penalty i.e, an attrition clause) Shawn signed a bad contract one time and when rooms didn't fill up, it ended up costing the company $40,000 in attrition contract penalties.

As for this recent web of lies he has told concerning how his personal money was tied up along with company money in the form of credit cards, lets look at some small and mostly insignificant things first before we look into the reality of that statement. First, for a guy who said over the PA system at Huntington beach the first year he took over, that this was going to be a new start for the league, one where the president (him) wasn't going to be paying himself six figures and driving around in fancy cars like he was insinuating was done in the past, he sure does have a lot of free money floating around to cover so much of the companies expenses. (Edit: and how good is his credit and how high was his pay to be able to even put $200k on a CREDIT CARD?) Oh, and don't go getting all freaky about how he got paid for the XPSL so that must be where his money came from. When he and Bruce worked out the deal for the league, Shawn had outstanding debts that needed to be paid, and in fact, Bruce paid off those debts and wanted Shawn to pay it back to him. It was never paid back. So Shawn never actually got a large sum of money for the buyout/merger of his XPSL and the NPPL. Which is maybe where some of that money went. Maybe Shawn felt he should have been paid for his league, so he just took what he felt he was owed from PP. He did that when he worked for Paintball Junkies and Mr. Paintball.

Also, again these are small and mainly insignificant but still interesting things to consider. Let's say we buy his story of the intertwining of his money with the companies. How do you explain the unauthorized company checks he wrote to his church, or to himself. He wrote an unauthorized company check for the turf in his back yard, which was brought up to him the day he was fired. His answer to the question, "What is this check for Shawn", was. "Oh, it looks like the company paid for my turf". What about that unauthorized, company paid for, compressor gift for his friends field. What about the many sponsor given products (given to PACIFIC PAINTBALL, not Shawn) that constantly came up short. 18 guns donated and sent to Shawn would turn out to be only 10 given. Happened numerous times.

Continued...

[Funkagenda]

Now lets actually get into these credit card claims. First of all, he was told NOT to use his personal card for anything the company needed, several times. He was told to use the COMPANY CARD which his name was on. He claims, "how can you over reimburse yourself for things that have to be approved?" Well, that's easy when you are the one in control of the petty cash at events and you use your card to purchase things, then pay yourself back with cash from the petty cash, and THEN turn in your expense receipts to the accountant to be RE-reimbursed. Why do you think the petty cash never could be properly reconciled at the end of events when he was in control of it. After that responsibility was taken away from him and given to Ashley, the receipts ALWAYS added up at the end of events.

Shawn Walker is solely responsible for the demise of Pacific Paintball. He is a liar, a thief, a manipulator, and a power hungry egomaniac. The fact that he went out and found this golden egg (Bruce and Co.) to invest in paintball, only to completely and single handedly fail at every attempt of making positive progress is nothing short of pure greed and stupidity. I have said this time and time again. He never intended to make positive changes. When Shawn took over the NPPL/Pacific Paintball (PP), he went out and hired a whole staff of people to work specific areas of the league. He hired someone to take over registration, someone to look for league sponsors, someone to take care of vendors at events, and so on. All of these new people came from his church, and none of them had any experience, not only in paintball, but in the actual position/area in which they would be working. Now I'm not saying that those people are bad, or even that they did a bad job, because this article isn't about them.....it's about Shawn. So if you've just been given pretty much the most influential power position in paintball, and you were backed with "all the money in the world" to run it, wouldn't it make complete sense to go out and find the industries best people to get on board to make that company the best it could be. Of course that would make sense.....IF, you actually were as strong of a leader as you sold yourself to be. You see, if Shawn went out and hired the industries best, or even just the best he could get for the money he was offering, then not only would he be exposed as the complete fumbling idiot that he is, but he wouldn't be able to stay in control of the power seat which allowed him to take financial advantage of being the president. By having people from his church, with no paintball experience or industry connections other than himself, no one would question his moves. No one would challenge his "authority", and that's exactly what he wanted. They wouldn't know any better. He never wanted to actually staff the most qualified, he wanted to staff the most likely to do what he said. Trust me, it is that simple.
Myself, Matty Marshall, Chris Corcino and many, many, many others all went to Shawn at one time or another after personally being asked to meet with him to go over certain areas of the league that were in need of help. I met with him about the reffing issues after what happened in Kansas City, Matt met with him about the web cast and media in general, and Chris met with him about overall branding and marketing strategies. All of us at the time had no idea that the others had met with him. Being friends and playing and working in the same industry, obviously, we eventually talked and got on the subject of the industry and what was going on in it. After talking we all figured out that one another had talked with Shawn and everyone of us had been treated exactly the same and all received pretty much the same outcome. We had all been told after meeting with him, to write up something formal about our idea and submit it to him and he would look it over and contact us. We all did so, and Chris and I were both left hanging without a response for over a month. After eventually getting back to us and telling us that there was no need for any of our ideas, and that financially the company was in no position to implement any of them, he then went out and worked those same ideas with other people and somehow miraculously found the money to fund those ideas. What are the chances that he would do that three times, that WE knew of, without it just being his MO. Shawn doesn't like being told that his ideas are no good, or that they are flawed. He also doesn't like having people around him that are out spoken and intelligent. Those are threats to him. Now if you want to try and say, well maybe he just didn't think you were good enough to do the job you had the ideas for, then I would say.......Ok, fine, I will accept that maybe he thought I had absolutely no business working the reffing problem, but why pass up Matty. Not only did he NEVER get back to Matty, but he completely ignored him at events when they crossed paths, and just blew him off through emails. Matty is the same guy who just did the PSP web cast with Patrick from Monkey With a Gun. I think we can all agree that their web cast was absolutely the best web cast ever produced for paintball. The real reason Shawn didn't want to work with us is because all three of us are strongwilled, outspoken people who he knew wouldn't just go along with all his ridiculousness. He couldn't control us.

I don't want people to think this is just a bash on Shawn Walker blog, or that I have a personal grudge with him because my girlfriend Ashely (and many others) is now out of a job because of him. There is so much more to all of this. Read my earlier postings and you will see that I have a goal in all of this and it's to help get this paintball train back on track. I have a problem with ALL of the things that are hurting this industry, not just with Shawn Walker. But there is one important thing about all of this Shawn Walker business that needs to paid close attention to. It's the very thing that has lead us all here to this place we are, in paintball. If we continue to let people control our sport who obviously don't have our best interest in mind, then we are all going to be stuck here with the same puppeteers pulling our strings. Shawn loves to talk about how people should be part of the solution and not the problem. Well people like him are the problem and anyone who doesn't see that or chooses not to, can never be a part of the solution. Shawn Walker and people like him are cancers to paintball, and they should be removed. The reason I am so animate about all of this is because not only did he absolutely, unequivocally, single handedly ruin one of the staples of this industry in the NPPL and set us all back, but he is now moving on, telling more lies and trying to brainwash more people into thinking he is a good guy and that all these people are just liars who are looking for a scapegoat. What is more believable? The word of someone who has stolen from a league, stolen from the teams, and stolen from the paintball world in general, or the words of the many people who have nothing to gain from telling the truth about a person who has ruined so many lives. You can't honestly think, all these people, including myself, are so petty as to take it upon ourselves and risk our own good names, just to pass the blame on to an "undeserving, good person". If we are EVER to move forward and create an industry that is what we all want it to be, we CAN NOT let people like this just walk away from a burning building, free from any responsibility for lighting the fire.

Do not support Shawn, and do not support the RPL. Don't become lazy and just give into the league because it is in operation and somewhere to play. There are plenty of other options already, and more on the way. None of you have a right to ***** about how bad things are if your just going to continue to feed into all the problems. "

[scf10190]

Interesting to say the least....hmm

[$h@key J0nEZ]

It's a dark year for paintball.

[Bloodangel13]

it is very interesting.
and its a shame that someone would try to get ahead at other peoples expense.

[phatphil]

Shawn Walker's response for those that would like to evaluate the counterargument.

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@***********

[raehl]

"The company's money WAS my money!" is not a counter-argument. It's an admission of guilt.

Keeping personal and company finances separate is both easy and necessary. Only an idiot would allow the co-mingling of funds, unless you were doing it on purpose to obscure other misdeeds.

Or, after the fact, you think a story about how it's all just a misunderstanding due to some self-created confusion plays better than "Yeah, I stole the $110,000+!"

- Chris

[southbaykilla]

Originally Posted by raehl

"The company's money WAS my money!" is not a counter-argument. It's an admission of guilt.

Keeping personal and company finances separate is both easy and necessary. Only an idiot would allow the co-mingling of funds, unless you were doing it on purpose to obscure other misdeeds.

Or, after the fact, you think a story about how it's all just a misunderstanding due to some self-created confusion plays better than "Yeah, I stole the $110,000+!"

- Chris

Chris you described Shawn perfectly IDIOT

[bulzeye]

i have recently contacted shawn about how his RPL league got my email address he claims is was from his sponsors. when I called him on it, since the email address they used was one i don't register for websites or anything but had used it for the nppl (becuase it was the only one i could access at my work). he wouldn't respond to that, until i asked him why he wouldn't resond. He then responded and said he answered my first question and that this matter was done to him.

He has still not responded to the fact that he stole the nppl email database

[Funkagenda]

Originally Posted by bulzeye

i have recently contacted shawn about how his RPL league got my email address he claims is was from his sponsors. when I called him on it, since the email address they used was one i don't register for websites or anything but had used it for the nppl (becuase it was the only one i could access at my work). he wouldn't respond to that, until i asked him why he wouldn't resond. He then responded and said he answered my first question and that this matter was done to him.

He has still not responded to the fact that he stole the nppl email database

This is what someone PM'd me with.

"be sure to forward that email (with headers) to abuse@icontact.com that's the servce he used to send it out. they will suspend his account."

send them the same email stating you received that email without any consent from them.

[syanidi13]

Shawn walker is a walking plague i hope he gets jail time and bubba makes him his *****.

[Carnagge]

normally you lay low for a year or two then do your own thing...this guys just stupid.

Yes, the Shawn prob stole everything..and the NPPL is going to legally sue the crap out of him. And then once that is done and all the debtors are trying to collect from Shawn the NPPL will come back. It will take time/years. It will more than likely happen as long as 7man goes unaddressed on the national tournament scene.

[MavBoii28]

Originally Posted by raehl

"The company's money WAS my money!" is not a counter-argument. It's an admission of guilt.

Keeping personal and company finances separate is both easy and necessary. Only an idiot would allow the co-mingling of funds, unless you were doing it on purpose to obscure other misdeeds.

Or, after the fact, you think a story about how it's all just a misunderstanding due to some self-created confusion plays better than "Yeah, I stole the $110,000+!"

- Chris

Agreed, Shawn Walker is a bumbling idiot, and killed paintball for me

[HungLo]

Chuck should have stayed the president imo, Shawn Walker Killed the NPPL for his personal greed, when the state paintball in needs to be promoted to the best he simply failed to recognize the individual. He should be held personally responsible for doing what he did. Not only did he steal from the company, he tried murdering 7 man paintball. With that said, paintball as a sport needs to be correctly managed and promoted to gain the popularity and respect it deserves, Shawn walker gets NONE.

[asylum11]

true dat ^ My sig explains how i feal quoted by another member

[HungLo]

Yeah im waiting for more news on the "new nppl" with chucks backing, the RPL shouldnt even exist.

[wdpballa4life]

i like how he said the company had no credit... they were not worht millions or anything...

[Death Merchant]

Heard rumours that there is another new league formming. The California Regional Paintball Players League. CRPPL for short. LOL. Maybe it is New Regional Paintball Players League or NRPPL for short