Surfrider Foundation is suing a Florida party promoter for stiffing the nationally prominent, San Clemente-based environmental group out of at least $30,000.
According to a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court, Scott H. Mitchell–the managing partner of Five Flags Tourism Group–hosted an October 2011, music festival called DeLuna Fest and promised to donate the greater of either $30,000 or $2 per sold ticket in exchange for using the Surfrider name and positive public image to enhance sales.
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Surfrider executives planned to use the money to help clean up the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But Mitchell has not delivered on his promise to make the donation
within a month of the three-day Pensacola Beach festival and is now
eight months late, according to the lawsuit.
Tickets cost $149 for the entire festival that featured Linkin Park, Jane's Addiction and Weezer.
Marketing for the event celebrated its ties to Surfrider.
Repeated efforts by Surfrider to resolve the dispute prior to litigation failed, according to documents attached to the lawsuit.
Mitchell has not yet filed a legal response to the lawsuit.
The DeLuna Fest is already promoting its 2012 event in September and claims the lineup will include Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
The case has been assigned to Superior Court Judge David Chaffee.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.