The previous owners of Dove Entertainment (now NewStar Media Inc.), Michael Viner and Deborah Raffin Viner, were awarded more than $13 million by a Los Angeles Superior Court last month in a malpractice suit against the law firm they hired to sell their company.
The jury found that the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams and Connolly had been "negligent in negotiating for the Viners," citing failure to protect their right to proper indemnification, their accrual of stock dividends and their producer credits on audiobooks.
"They will probably appeal," said Viner, "but this is the light at the end of the tunnel. Deborah and I are very happy--and very happy with what we are currently doing."
Late last year, Viner and Raffin launched a new company, New Millennium Entertainment, which, like Dove, will produce both books and TV features. The company's first title, Presumed Guilty by Stephen Singular, about the JonBenet Ramsey murder, appeared in the summer and has sold 35,000 copies with 50,000 currently in print. Two more titles are expected out this month; Moses' Lost Book of the Bible and Madness in the Morning, about the war between the morning network shows, by Richard Hack. Viner said two new series will launch in 2000. "We will have a Hollywood-oriented collection with two titles released every quarter," he noted, "and a business book collection of six titles a year."
