I'ver heard that he-who-is-the-subject started out with somebody backing him with bunch of dough from an inheritance or somesuch.
I dunno. It does look like it, on the surface. In the decade after his bankruptcy, Campbell bought a house on an airpark, two airplanes, filed five lawsuits and was the defendant in three more.
However, the bankruptcy undoubtedly gave him some breathing room. He owed over $100,000 to various printers, another $35,000 to his ex-wife, and about $20,000 to the IRS. The list of unsecured creditors is fascinating… attorneys in several states, a number of computer stores, more printers, credit card companies, and a bunch of clinic and hospital bills.
All wiped clean.
The only thing lingering was his agreement to pay the Bankruptcy Trustee $25,000 to settle the Fraud/Perjury lawsuit. The record shows him keeping up payments pretty good for the first three years, but then they start petering out (“Payments are continuing/less regular”) and then basically end (“Monthly payments have ceased with little likelihood of resuming…”).
When he switched his magazine to an all-electronic format, his expenses dropped drastically. Server space is a lot cheaper than printing thousands of magazines every month. I bet the advertising rates didn’t change… and immediately suing two companies for violating supposed verbal contracts for advertising probably encouraged others to continue (those lawsuits were filed just a month before ANN took over the payments to the bankruptcy trustee). His last payment to the trustee occurred the same month he filed three additional lawsuits against ex-advertisers (April 2005).
He bought a Glasair a year later (at about the same time the Bankruptcy Trustee finally closed the case), but lost his attorney for his second Sun-N-Fun lawsuit (filed in 2003) a year after that (August 2007), for apparent non-payment of his legal bills. The Judge’s order granting the petition quotes “… Rule 4-1.16(b)(4)(5) of the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct…”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ethics/fl/code/FL_CODE.HTM
The same attorney was handling his remaining lawsuits against his ex-advertisers, and Campbell was unable to get a replacement. So these lawsuits were dismissed as well. The next year, he somehow convinced Cirrus that he was a good candidate for a loan, and we all know how THAT has turned out.
He may have had some big source of outside income, like an inheritance, but if so, it sure looks like he frittered it away….
Ron Wanttaja
, here's a summary of SE-4661:
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