Marbella Entertainment, the “highly regarded” Beverly Hills production company 46-year-old CEO William Scott Spalding founded, claims to have movies in the pipeline titled Closers Only, Journey Through Midnight and Beverly Hills Bottom Feeders.
But, according to law enforcement authorities, SpaldingĀ employed the closers-only tactics of a boiler-room scammer to foist a journey through a nightmarish midnight on a Huntington Beach single mom, who the Beverly Hills bottom feeder allegedly took for $280,000.
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Huntington Beach Police and U.S. deputy marshals on Tuesday
arrested Spalding following an eight-month investigation. He
was at his new Irvine home, “living the high life” as authorities put
it. New Bentley. New Mercedes. Cigars costing a Benjamin. Stashes of cash.
It
was quite a climb back for someone who was convicted in 2008 of
scamming Redondo Beach residents out of $300,000 in a sham movie deal.
He did 3 1/2 years in the federal pen, and upon release he was supposed
to pay restitution to his victims and, of course, commit no more crimes.
He didn't keep either bargain and was considered a fugitive.
Curious, then, that Spalding managed in April to legally change his name to Jonathan Scott Morgan. Do those who approve such things have no way of knowing that they are changing the name of a wanted man? Police and the feds say it can happen.
But they are too busy sorting out his latest
alleged scam to worry about that. Spalding is in federal custody on
suspicion of using a fake business to extort money from victims
by promising gold in exchange for cash. His lifestyle was so opulent
that investigators are reaching out to the public for other potential victims. Call Detective Brad Smith at 714.960.8848 or Sgt. Dale
Shields at 714.536.5948 if you've been had.
Spalding allegedly “sold” a Surf City woman gold for $280,000 in March–and then
never showed up with the gold, as he promised, “in the immediate future.”
Then he didn't answer her calls, according to authorities, who say his
phone was later disconnected and the address he gave her for his Beverly
Hills business was phony. She called the cops when she tired of getting no
response.
Spalding's Beverly Hills businesses are the aforementioned Marbella and Gibraltar
Capital Group, which authorities now say are as phony as that address he gave the lady.
His
bio on the crude website for Marbella, which Spalding claims to have
founded “to finance and
produce/distribute films in the $5-$15 million dollar range,” states he
is also CEO of MCLE Services Inc., Source Entertainment Inc. and
Diamante Films Inc.
Spalding says he was educated at the Harvard
Business School and Gemological Institute of America. He boasts “22
years experience in venture capital, M & A transactions,
Public Equity Financing, Business Development, Production and
Distribution of Feature Films.” He claims to have “been a founder
and/or early stage investor in 7 (seven) production companies that have
raised over $200 million in private equity.”
“Marbella
Entertainment is dedicated to providing the best quality production
service utilizing the most recent technology coupled with the most
efficient cost effetive [sic] methods,” goes the company spiel. “Marbella Entertainment is a highly
respected Production Company and our CEO, Scott Spalding has been a key
player in the financial and entertainment industries since 1988.”
This
is a guy who says he can do it all: “business startups, mergers &
acquisitions, business development, corporate marketing & strategy,
capital structure and reorganization, IPO's, turnarounds, strategic
alliances, private and public equity and investment banking.”
William Scott Spalding Jonathan Scott Morgan has been an expert at even more than that, if the case being built against him is to be believed.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.