[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]he new boss strolled into one of the most respected alternative weeklies in the country and promptly fired everyone — a Red Wedding to remember in L.A. media — then turned around and asked for double more compensation for the mere task of re-staffing the team he “had just gutted.” To the tune of another $135,000.
This is just one of several explosive claims one of the principal partners of the company that bought the LA Weekly last fall is making in L.A. Superior Court against Brian Calle, the Orange County conservative-leaning operative who became publisher of the Weekly after its sale in late November 2017.
David Welch, a downtown cannabis attorney, filed suit against Brian Calle with a blistering complaint that alleges gross violations of basic editorial ethics and says that Calle and others sought to enrich themselves off the storied alt-weekly.
The plaintiff alleges that the managing owners led by Calle obliterated and destroyed the paper in less than a year, due to “breathtaking incompetence, self-dealing and fraudulent intentions.”
Calle, the main target of the suit, did not respond to a request for comment at press time.