Washington state MMA promoters and arena suing each other

The owner of Sk8town, a South Kitsap, Washington skating rink has filed a lawsuit against the promoters of an amateur mixed martila arts event that drew about 1,000 spectators earlier this month (see article at bottom). Imemdiately below, the event promoters C.j. Halliburton and Jenn Akopian respond.

We would like to thank all of you for your patience in awaiting our statements about the current legal proceedings and issues that followed our last event at Sk8Town. We had originally chosen to ignore any rumors circulating about the issue but due to recent malicious acts towards our company and our personal lives by Sk8Town, we feel we have no choice other than to make a statement setting the record straight.

Let us first start by saying that all the information within the articles printed thus far is false. The contract between us and Sk8Town was very simple; it stated that Sk8Town would pay us a set amount of money to throw the event, and then all ticket proceeds collected would be split 50/50 between us. As of this moment, Sk8Town technically still owes us money as per the contract alone.

We will not throw accusations around publicly as they did, but we will say that at some point in the evening it became very clear that someone had taken a large sum of money from the safe and stolen it. The money being stolen is a fact, who stole it is the question. We have our own ideas on where it went, but we will let the court system sort that matter out for us.

Even still, with money we were entitled to having gone missing, we split 50/50 every dollar of money we had left with Sk8Town. The online ticket sales were frozen before we even had a chance to collect and disburse funds from them. To clarify, the online ticket sale company has only one account for Jennifer Manley/Akopian. There are not several accounts of any sort and to say such a thing is a blatant lie.

We can tell you that what happened after the lights went down and the show was ended was completely opposite to what has been said previously. We confronted them about the issues we had with missing money and asked them to produce some items which they refused to. Sk8Town’s Darlene Piper was inebriated beyond reason and Mark Baker became threatening and combativr when we said we would settle it in court rather than deal with them in such a hostile environment. There was a point in the evening where one of our laptops was stolen, and mixed with that theft and the hostility coming from them, we chose to call law enforcement to the scene to help the situation and retrieve some of our property.

Also, although a suit has been filed by Sk8Town, neither of us here at Revolution Republiq have yet to receive an official summons; neither of us has been officially served. Since we were in process of filing a suit against them when we became made aware of this information, we have chosen to respond to their suit anyway, even though we have no legal obligation to do so until we have been served. When breach of contract talk comes into play, maybe Sk8Town should be reminded that their discussing any terms of the contract or financial information that has anything to do with our contract, is a breach of contract to begin with, one which they have obviously breached several times over.

It is unfortunate that the aftermath of such an amazing show would be marred in any way by such a thinly veiled charade of people trying to pass the blame on to others and cover their tracks, deflecting attention away from the other various legal and moral issues swirling about them. We, of course, wish to always tell our side of the story if for no other reason than to assuage the curiosity of our peers. However, we are completely confident that the suit filed by Sk8Town will be dismissed nearly immediately when the evidence rolls forth and that the countersuit we have in place will be handled as soon as possible. We are also not letting it stop the steam in the RevRep engine. We collectively have an amazing track record with everything we have done, every fighter we have worked with, and every show we have been a part of. We rest on our laurels when it comes to anything MMA, and, as always, seek only to shine a light on the bright and vibrant superstars of tomorrow. We hope this clears up any misconceptions anyone may have. Feel free to contact us with any specific questions you may have that were not answered here and we will try our best to answer them if we can. We wish everyone a blessed day and we will see you at the next event!

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Details of the suit against the promoters:

The lawsuit alleges the promoters — Jennifer Manley and Carl J. Halliburton, whose business is called Revolution Republiq — took all the money from tickets sold at the door for the Dec. 3 “Liberation” event and have not repaid Sk8town for up-front expenses incurred in staging the event, nor have they split the net proceeds with Sk8town after expenses were covered, as the contract calls for.

The lawsuit further claims that Manley, who also goes by the name Jenn Akopian, set up accounts under three different names with the company that handled advance ticket sales online, and that funds from advance sales went into those accounts.

When the lawsuit was filed, Sk8town requested and was granted an injunction to block any further disbursement of funds from the ticket sales company until the suit is settled.

Tickets for the event cost $15 in advance and $20 at the door. There also were higher-priced tickets available for front-row seating and for a VIP lounge where alcohol was served.

The Sk8town lawsuit also claims that the promoters were responsible for providing security at the event, but that only two security staff were hired.

Read entire article…

Carl J. Halliburton

 Jenn Akopian