More Insight On The Attorney Resignation

In reviewing my notes from Ted Lindauer, it seems that John Simmons' firm was also overseeing the legal department and had appointed Andrea Clagg as director:

In the following months my administrative department received additional personnel, including the appointment of CFO John Clagg’s wife, Andrea, a non-attorney, as the Director of Legal Services. My compliance recommendations continued to be ignored.

In early August, 2007 I learned that John Clagg was giving various compliance directives to his wife. Neither John nor his wife were discussing these matters with me before acting on them. I objected noting to Coach that neither John Clagg nor his wife were qualified to make legal compliance decisions and the decisions they had made were wrong ones. Coach refused to stop the Claggs from making compliance decisions and refused to reverse the erroneous compliance decisions they had made....



After the Convention Coach informed me that local attorney John Simmons was being engaged as overall General Counsel for YTB International, Inc. and its subsidiaries. I met with John Simmons on several occasions in August to review my compliance and other recommendations previously provided to Coach in several memos. On September 7, 2007, John Simmons asked me to temporarily vacate my office at YTB so it could be modified to house two attorneys. That evening I received an email from John Simmons welcoming me to his new legal team.

Several days later, while working at home, I received an email from Thad Leach, a local attorney who is part of the new legal team. Mr. Leach’s email contained one sentence and stated that YTB had decided that it was no longer in need of my services.

I wonder if John Simmons had seen some of the same stuff Lindauer had seen. I wonder if it was a resignation or a termination. After all it seems that YTB does not need ANYONE meddling in their business.

What is interesting is that John Simmons actually owns the River House. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Coach only "owns" it if the YTB stock trades at $2 or more for 90 consecutive days.

And even the local papers are suspicious of this latest development. According to the Alton Telegraph:

Prominent local attorney John Simmons has resigned from the board of YTB, the controversial travel sales firm, but Simmons and the company management are choosing their words carefully.

I am not sure we will hear more on this--attorneys are notoriously tight lipped, but I imagine that this will not be the ;ast "independent" Board member to leave. After all, Bob Dickinson bailed on day one.And as go the RTAs (currently under 120,000 I understand), so go the Board members.  But I am not sure Coach and Scott can effectively say "We don;t need no stinkin' RTAs." After all they are the ones that support the pyramid.