There were many assets in Pro Arts that had great value, but only to those buyers that knew how to turn those assets into dollars after they had purchased them.

With a commitment from two New York investors, I was able to secure the assets of Pro Arts that made Pro Arts the Poster Company.

To Pro Arts' competition, the assets were of no value. After all, if they had been worth anything, wouldn't Pro Arts still be in business?

This was the basic response that I had been given by numerous investors that had turned me down.

After much searching and heart-wrenching agony, God had given me the opportunity to meet two very honest and sincere gentlemen. As they are very private individuals, I purposely refrain from mentioning their names because of the great respect and personal debt that I owe both of them.

They know who they are, as I have personally given a copy of this book to both of them and I feel that the trust that they placed in me at a very low point in my life has forever made me their friend.

With a simple handshake, the two men gave me a commitment of $100,000 and the promise to take PIE "public" shortly after PIE and their corporation merged and purchased those certain assets of Pro Arts. For the purpose of reference, I shall call these two men, Fred and Norman.

Three days after I had met Fred and Norman in New York, I received a Cashier's Check for $50,000 with a commitment of another $50,000 after PIE had purchased assets from the Pro Arts estate through the Trustee and the bankruptcy court.

Near the end of August, l984, I prepared an offer to purchase the copyrights, original art, the old K-Mart returned poster racks, the name, "Pro Arts", all trademarks and logos, as well as all consignments (including poster racks) remaining in the retail stores after Pro Arts had closed its doors.

Virgil Murray is a friend that I have known for several years. Virgil had purchased the Pro Arts building from Old Phoenix National Bank after the bank had foreclosed on the building. It was funny that Virgil had continued to do business with Old Phoenix because earlier the bank had been pressuring Virgil on his existing loans. Yet, Virgil was successful in selling one of his assets which gave Virgil not only enough money to satisfy the bank, but enough to purchase our building from the bank after John, Mike and I had lost it.

Virgil purchased several assets of Pro Arts through the bankruptcy court that Pro Arts had owned.

Two of those assets were the K-Mart Lawsuit and the Mihalik $225,000 Final Judgment.

Virgil had been discussing the purchase of the Mihalik Judgment with Trustee Gertz prior to Gertz removing himself from the Pro Arts liquidation. Yet, the purchase was not finalized until Kathryn Belfance, the new Trustee for Pro Arts, had become the estate's Legal Representative.

After Virgil had purchased the Mihalik Asset from the court, Virgil retained Roger Ingraham to collect the $225,000 Judgment because Roger had a 40% interest in the debt as the attorney of record on that lawsuit.

Roger retained an attorney in Chicago to pursue the collection until that attorney was given a copy of a letter that had been mailed to Peter Cantwell from Dietrich's office.

This letter, dated November 1, 1983, a few days after the Unsecured Creditors' letter stated they would share in the Judgment, off-set the $225,000 Judgment against the $500,000 pre-petitioned settlement Cantwell had extorted from Pro Arts at the time of the Plan's Confirmation Hearing.

The only problem with this letter was the fact that other than Cantwell, Dietrich and the conspirators, no one knew that anything had been offset against the $500,000 settlement!

Nearly two months after the November 1 "set-off" letter to Cantwell, Dietrich, on December 30, l983, in a Status Report filed with the Bankruptcy Court, stated that the Final Judgment was still pending and the creditors would still share in the collection. Cantwell, as well as every creditor, received the information through the courts and never disclosed the set-off until Virgil and Roger tried to collect the money in Chapter 7.

A hearing was held in Judge White's court and Cantwell as well as Roger Ingraham and Virgil Murray attended the hearing. Belfance, as the Trustee, tried to justify her mistake in selling the Judgment by stating that Murray had purchased the liability of the Mihalik verse Pro Arts lawsuit and not the Judgment of Pro Arts verses Mihalik!

There were several major facts that negated Belfance's argument.

First, Belfance had written the Order to Sell the Asset as Pro Arts vs. Mihalik et al. The plaintiff is always listed first in the notice of suit and in reference to the suit and the defendant is listed after the "verses" portion of the title.

Secondly, the Mihalik verses Pro Arts suit had been settled in White's courtroom when Cantwell obtained the $500,000 claim for his clients. The Mihalik verses Pro Arts lawsuit ceased to exist!

Thirdly, the most obvious fact was that no person in their right mind would want to purchase a liability that could cost them a few hundred thousand dollars without having any up side to that purchase!

Because Belfance had used the Mihalik case number in the sale of the Judgment to Virgil, she convinced Judge White that Murray had purchased the liability and not the Judgment. The bankruptcy court had cheated Virgil Murray because the liability that had been sold to him had been settled. The Court sold something that did not exist!

When I discovered the fact that a set-off had occurred, as a secured creditor of Pro Arts, I had a claim against that Judgment.

White on the other hand decided to uphold the set-off for Cantwell allowing the fraud to be swept under the bankruptcy rug without further recourse by me.

White was not interested in finding out the truth concerning the major frauds in his court.

As a former attorney (you must be an attorney or pass the bar exam to sit on a bench in a courtroom), White was more interested in protecting Dietrich and his law firm Roetzel & Andress than he was in upholding the law.

It is unfortunate that judges regard their "fellow attorneys" the opportunity to commit major frauds in their courtrooms and allow those frauds to go unpunished. This is a major reason why the courts and attorneys have the worst reputation in the world!

Even in Shakespeare's time, Shakespeare wrote in one of his plays:

"The first thing we do is Kill all the lawyers."

This idea still prevails today.