We just ran a story about Kevin Geddings, a terminated GM at Volusia Broadcasting’s Oldies WROD-A/FM Daytona Beach, who is being sued by station owner Joe Hopkins for misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, wrongful repossession and false imprisonment. The case is pending in Volusia County, FL.
Geddings tells his side of the story: “There are so many lawsuits involving this Hopkins guy. He is being sued by the Fowler Consulting media brokerage firm for not paying commissions. I’m suing him; he’s suing me. He’s facing a series of FCC fines, which came out in November. [See that here: WROD_NOV.] From my perspective and others, he’s just a bad character. Between his FCC violations and other various non-payments of debts and how he handles his business, he’s just an incredibly poor radio station operator.”
As to the boat involved, Geddings tells us he was on vacation with his daughter at the time and Hopkins had given him no indication he had any issues. He was, at the time, GM for WROD. “I had coughed up $100K from my retirement fund to buy into the station so that he could buy this FM translator. Then he sends me an email on a Friday while I’m on vacation and said I had been fired, without any discussion or loan repayment terms. So he still holds my retirement funds. We’re moving forward in Federal court to retrieve/foreclose on his yacht that he used as leverage in the loan.”
As the suit Hopkins filed said, Geddings’ friends at one point pretended to be potential buyers of the yacht. Instead, they attempted to repossess it for Geddings from Hopkins. Said Geddings: “The State of Florida ruled that my repo effort was 100% legit … Hopkins was buddy with the local judge who gave him the order to take it back… now we are in federal court where a repo will be more according to the law, not who you dine with at the Daytona Yacht Club.”
As to the other suit, Geddings says brokers Todd Fowler and Mark Jorgenson were involved in getting Hopkins his FM translator for WROD. He was recently called into depositions on that case and it’s supposed to go to trial in September. That suit, as mentioned above, is over non-payment of a $15,000 commission.
Fowler tells RBR-TVBR: “Mark and I are suing Volusia Broadcasting for their lack of paying our brokerage commission. So we have filed suit in Volusia County and we have an attorney down there. We are clearly listed in the contract. It’s unfortunate we’re having to do all of this, but that’s fine and hopefully we’ll get some resolution.”
Still no word back yet from Hopkins for the story.
