From late October of l982 through June l0, l983, the struggle to complete the final Confirmation Plan of Pro Arts by every party involved with the plan except for John, Mike and me was not only extremely difficult, but involved many frauds and deliberate misrepresentations.

What will be exposed in the following chapters of this book are facts that were discovered by me over a ten year period involving bankruptcy frauds, Mafia loans laundered through Pro Arts, stock frauds, real estate frauds, mail frauds and wire frauds.

The desperate acts of all the individuals involved were brought before two Federal Judges under the RICO statute (Racketeered Influence and Corrupt Organizations) because those individuals involved either were dealing with the Mafia or they were committing frauds similar to frauds committed by the Mafia.

As the reader, you may ask the question, "How did Ted Trikilis obtain the evidence to support the statements made in this book?"

I obtained the evidence through documents filed in Federal Bankruptcy Court, through correspondences of the individuals that were either mailed through the U.S. Postal System, Taped Conversations with me and those individuals, through sworn depositions; through the Production of Documents under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and by personally inspection over 2,000,000 documents of Pro Arts after it was put into Chapter 7 Liquidation by Judge White.

Everything that is stated in the following chapters is supported by evidence so conclusive that it would be impossible for me to fabricate it. The taped conversations were stated by me to review the numerous deals that were presented to my family and me and the numerous times those deals were changed by the individuals involved.

Taped conversations are legal as long as there is one willing party in the taped conversation that knows the conversation is being taped. Since all of the individuals that either called me on the telephone or I called on the telephone spoke to me while I was recording the calls, I was the willing party with knowledge of the taped conversations.

Additionally, those individuals that defrauded my family and me were sued in federal court in l985 and they were aware at that time that I had taped the conversations. In fact, their attorneys made copies of the conversations and if I inadvertently committed any crime, the statute of limitations has already run its course and there can be no direct civil or criminal cause of action brought against me at the writing of this book.

In the latter part of October of 1982, Bedell and Angona were applying pressure on John and me to sign the deals that they had finally agreed to keep.

The Real Estate Deal was tied to two employment agreements in which John and I would work for the new Pro Arts and these work agreements had clauses in them to prevent either John or me leaving Pro Arts to start another poster company and compete with the new Pro Arts.

Many incidents occurred which caused John and me to question Bedell and Angona's ability to run the new Pro Arts. On October 13, Bedell had let the insurance on the buildings and the contents of the building lapse! If a fire were to have occurred at that time, everything we hoped to own in the reorganization would have literally gone up in smoke. There were clauses in the S.B.A. loan guarantee that allowed for immediate receivership of the building if the insurance was canceled! This upset John and me tremendously.

On October 21, Angona came to Pro Arts with Jerry Mann. He was supposed to be an investor in the new company, but I never learned much about him because he was killed in his airplane a few weeks later. Angona had flown with Mann to Pro Arts in the same plane that crashed later. I often wonder how my life would have been changed if Angona had been in the airplane with Mann on his fatal last trip?

The purpose of the Angona and Mann meeting was to go over the plan with Stewart, Dietrich, Andy Finger, John and me.

Angona had brought the Employment Agreements Newman had prepared for John and me.

Again, these agreements were not what John and I had agreed to accept the week before.

Dietrich was anxious to put the tentative plan through the bankruptcy court, but could not do it until Bedell and Angona had completed their agreements with Mike, John and me. After I had the agreements modified to include those things that Bedell and Angona had omitted, we were ready to sign the agreements pending the Real Estate contracts being completed.

This agreement was still being negotiated!

I went to New York on October 28 and met with Bedell and Angona to discuss the real estate agreement. Again Bedell was negotiating me downward. When I asked about my personal loan of $25,000, they again assured me that the money would be forth coming when we had finally put the Plan to bed.

I believe today that the loan was never going to happen even if the company had survived the Chapter 11 successfully. I feel that Bedell and Angona used this $25,000 loan as one uses a carrot to entice a rabbit to cooperate. But, at the time, I could not see this happening because I was too close to the situation to evaluate it properly. I also assumed that since Bedell was a Trustee in his Profit Sharing Pension Fund that he was an honorable man. This later proved to be my worst misconception in my entire life.

On October 29, I went to Ken Newman's office to pick up the Work Agreements and the Real Estate Purchase Agreement. I reviewed it quickly and had to leave to catch the next airplane home. Since I had transferred the JMT partnership interest to my wife, Io, I signed the acceptance of the tentative Real Estate agreement as a consultant to the JMT partnership and not as one of its partners.

When I returned to Ohio, I gave Dietrich a copy of the agreements with specific instructions not to use them until Gagliano looked over the changes.

When Gagliano reviewed the changes, he was not excited about the changes that Newman had made. So we were still at a standstill regarding the Real Estate deal.

During the weeks that Stewart had taken control of the Pro Arts office, very little information regarding the sales of the company was being given to John and me. As the Marketing Vice President, properties in the entertainment areas, which I submitted to Stewart, Bedell and Angona were being neglected, and in most cases not even acknowledged as being given by me.

Stewart was working directly with American Greetings on renewing the Strawberry Shortcake license that I had originally obtained nearly two years earlier and Stewart was not telling me this!

Since I did not want the license to expire and have inventories that could not be sold without the license, I tried unsuccessfully to reach Joe Stralka of American Greetings. It was later that I had discovered that Stewart had already contacted Stralka and learned of the cancellation of our license.

It was beginning to appear to me that Stewart wanted to be the "big cheese" in negotiating licenses for Pro Arts. Since Stewart had very little knowledge of the business, he was not capable of understanding the direction the company had to go in order to bring the sales into Pro Arts that were required to meet its overhead let alone the profits to get out of Chapter 11.

Stewart began using our rack department to come up with merchandising ideas for American Greetings. If you can imagine a $2,000,000 company offering advice to a $750,000,000 company, then you can imagine the folly in Stewart's approach. Especially since his background only two months earlier was laying carpet in Winslow, Maine!

Stewart used to work late at the office after everyone had left. I suspected him of doing things in the office that were not in the best interest of Pro Arts or my family.

I discovered that the Sales Office in New York City that was opened in the Empire State Building needed two IBM Selectric Typewriters that Stewart later crated in wooden containers and personally took them to New York on one of his trips. I also discovered that Stewart, as Pro Arts' Controller, failed to report the New York Office expenses in the Bankruptcy Reports he filed every month under penalty of perjury!

Stewart became a two-faced underhanded power hungry greedy person. I later told John that as I viewed Stewart, he would not be with Pro Arts for more that one year after he started with the company.

It is funny to say that Stewart worked a few days beyond one year before he was fired by the new Board of Directors of Pro Arts probably to prove me wrong (even though he did not know I had made that statement to John.)

Stewart was upset that Angona retained the title of President of Pro Arts since Stewart appeared to be doing all the work in the company. Stewart pressured Bedell into making Angona Vice President of Sales and changing Stewart's title to President.

Stewart also viewed his efforts as worthy enough to get Angona and Bedell to agree that he would receive 10% of Pro Arts' stock once they were out of Chapter 11.

When I learned this fact, I viewed it as Bedell's way of Carrot Waving to control Stewart's loyalty even though Stewart never ever received any stock from the deal.

As Stewart continued to perform at Pro Arts, the sales declined drastically. I was telling Bedell and Angona that I did not feel Stewart to be competent in running the business thinking that my honesty would open their eyes to what was transpiring at the company. This only made Stewart apprehensive in discussing matters with me since Bedell and Angona disclosed my feelings to Stewart. By mid-November, Stewart was shielding information from me on a regular basis. John had been shifted to sales and his territory was North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

John had three children and a wife living in Medina at their home and now it appeared that Bedell and Angona wanted John out of the way while they were putting the Chapter 11 Plan together.

I was told to stay in my office and do the "marketing" for new poster programs. When I told Bedell and Angona that a poster of Michael Jackson would be very good, they ignored this advice. Later Bi-Rite Enterprises in Chicago got Jackson's license and sold several million posters because of Jackson's "THRILLER" album!

Stewart continued to leave the building after everyone had left for the day. I once parked my car in a parking lot across the street from Pro Arts to observe Stewart when he finally left the building.

He was carrying something large in a box that I could not see. I know that Stewart was doing something, but I could not find out what it was.

As Marketing Vice President, I had planned several trips to Hollywood for licensing only to have Bedell and Stewart cancel them. They were afraid that I might renew my relationships with the companies that I had licensed products and did not want my personal credibility reestablished. In fact, after I had agreed to make deals that Bedell and Angona had approved, Stewart did everything to keep the deals from happening including the interception of letters to the companies accepting the deals! I became a real "horse's ass" in the industry and stopped abusing my relationship after I discovered Stewart's attempts to discredit me!

I continued to receive calls from my personal creditors asking about payments on my personal accounts. Since I had very little money coming in and the reliability of Bedell and Angona to provide timely paychecks was dwindling, I allowed my personal credit to go directly into the toilet. I had excellent credit at one time. I could borrow $25,000 on my signature alone! Prior to the Chapter 11, my personal interest expense in one year was over $40,000! With all my outstanding loans, I was paying over $3,000 each month in interest payments alone. This in hindsight today seems impossible, yet my tax returns reflected these amounts as interest during that period of time and was deductible from your gross income prior to paying taxes to the government.

Relatively speaking, my interest expense over the past five years has been less than $2,000 total.

I had a Visa Loan at OPNB and this was money that I had charged on the Visa account. The bank allowed me to convert the Visa account to a note prior to going Chapter 11. Now, I received calls from Hallman demanding payments on the note!

Hallman knew exactly where John and I stood financially, yet he enjoyed shaking my cage every opportunity he could find! He threatened foreclosure on the note and said that he would liquidate my wife's tractors to repay the note. Dave Jones even called me on this loan threatening me with foreclosure.

Again looking back, I see these attempts by OPNB, Hallman and Jones to collect money that they knew I could not pay as an effort to put me into a personal bankruptcy. Once in bankruptcy, the assets that remained under my control would now be under a Trustee's control. I would not be able to oppose the Bankruptcy plan.

In mid-November, l982, John told me that he had met with Dave Jones and Gary Hallman separately at the bank. John spoke with them and discovered that a meeting with Bedell, Stewart, Dietrich and the bank was scheduled for the latter part of November. Stewart had not mentioned this meeting to John or me.

John told me that both Hallman and Jones did not want John or me at this meeting!

It was only going to be the bank, Stewart, the attorneys (Schwemler of Brouse & McDowell and Dietrich), Bedell and Angona. I suspected that "something" was brewing and I did not like being excluded from these meetings.

It was at this point both John and I suspected that we were being "sold out" by the bank and by everyone involved in this meeting.

Later, during my RICO lawsuit against Hallman, Bramley, OPNB, Brouse & McDowell, Dietrich, Stevenson, Roetzel & Andress, Mihalik, Doughty, Useloff, Greg Happ, Medina County Prosecutor, Bedell, Angona and Stewart, I discovered a memo from Stewart to Bedell and Angona explaining what was to be covered at this meeting.

I also obtained a letter from Schwemler of Brouse & McDowell to Dietrich outlining the events and discussions of that meeting dated the day following the meeting.

The letter explained what the bank required in order to agree to the Chapter 11 Plan Bedell and Angona were going to propose. But it also significantly stated that the IRS payments were to be prorated out of the Lock Box account! This confirmed my contention that the funds in the account were to be used for IRS payments! (They never were since Hallman transferred the $112,000 to the Equipment loan in August of 1983!)

"Also, if Old Phoenix is to prorate out the Lock Box funds, we will need Confirmation on the IRS figures, although, the List I have may be accurate."

More important than this was Schwemler's comment:

"I am told that Bedell has some real problems with Ted Trikilis which may affect his ability to take over the debtor company."

In this instance, Schwemler was sending a signal to everyone involved with the Reorganization Plan of Pro Arts that I was someone they should refrain from giving information about their plans!

This same letter indicated that JMT was $54,306.50 behind on its mortgage payments and that the bank needed this amount to cure JMT's default. But this was an amount due December 28, l982 not November 30, l982. Their desires to confirm a plan in December were reinforced by the bank's request for the mortgage NOT TO BE IN DEFAULT AT THE TIME THE PLAN WAS TO BE PRESENTED!

While Pro Arts was preparing to emerge from its Chapter 11, both Mihalik's attorney and Macon/Treffinger's attorney were causing great distress among the Bedell and Angona group.

Prior to voting Bedell and Angona control of Pro Arts, both John and I had stated vehemently that we would not accept any settlement offers on either lawsuit unless it included settlements with Mike, John and me.

Dietrich was aware of these comments and commitments. Bedell and Angona both agreed to our demands. Yet, underneath their agreement to our demands they were conspiring to settle both lawsuits against the company and allow both lawsuits to continue against John, Mike and me!

In a letter to Treffinger's attorney, Schwemler stated the bank's position with regards to its existing loans to Pro Arts and JMT. On December 20, l982, Schwemler's letter stated the following:

"Generally, our understanding with Pro Arts and JMT and the proposed purchaser is that they will cure the respective loans in that they will bring them current. At that point, either with the balances as thereby reduced or otherwise upon terms which would be acceptable to Old Phoenix, an amort- ization of the loans would be arranged with the pur- chaser on a basis which would accommodate the pro- jected cash flow the reor- ganized Pro Arts business."

It was always John and my understanding that Old Phoenix would not accept any Plan to reorganize Pro Arts unless both the Equipment Loan and the Real Estate Loan were current at the time the Plan was confirmed. Schwemler's letters express this representation clearly to third parties as well. Yet, the bank would ultimate plot with the other conspirators to defraud JMT out of its buildings and to disregard all its promises in order to obtain full payments on their loans.