{"id":102937,"date":"2025-08-28T22:27:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T22:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/102937\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T22:27:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T22:27:06","slug":"dr-phil-accused-of-a-bankruptcy-conspiracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/102937\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil accused of a bankruptcy conspiracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Phil\u2019s contentious legal battle over the bankruptcy of his media venture, Merit Street Media, has taken a juicy turn. Merit\u2019s former broadcasting partners Trinity Broadcasting<\/a> and Professional Bull Riders (PBR) have joined forces to accuse Phil McGraw of all sorts of shady shit, most notably that he swindled both organizations for millions and then used the bankruptcy to launch a new media venture, Envoy. This week, Trinity complained in court that McGraw has been going to \u201cextraordinary lengths\u201d to avoid deposition (per <\/a>Deadline<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of his deposition-dodging tactics is allegedly refusing to hand over relevant materials for discovery in Trinity\u2019s breach of contract lawsuit. But the materials PBR has managed to acquire are pretty damning. Text messages from Merit Street\u2019s chief operating officer Joel Cheatwood suggest a bankruptcy conspiracy, evidenced by the fact that he instructed employees to keep all communications off of their work emails. The texts (via <\/a>The Independent<\/a>) lay out a scheme to wind down operations at Merit Street while shifting staffers over to Envoy. \u201cThe way this will probably work is once MSM is wound down there will be an auction of assets and newco will bid to buy the MSM program library,\u201d he explained in one text. He also texted that he and Merit\u2019s Chief Executive Officer Ken Solomon needed to \u201cbe very careful with our public activities associated with Envoy since we are still full and active employees\u201d of Merit, adding that any \u201c[a]ctivities that would indicate we are more focused on Envoy could be problematic if called into question.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Debtor and its executives knew the Envoy scheme was problematic and tried to conceal it by using only personal emails and texts. On June 30 (two days before the bankruptcy), Mr. Cheatwood instructed a colleague that \u2018any communication involving timing of events, strategies, etc. we need to not use the merit street e-mail system. Use text instead,’\u201d PBR\u2019s filing reads. (PBR hasn\u2019t outright sued Merit Street, but accused the company of failing to pay millions in owed payments.) \u201cThe documents produced to date demonstrate that this bankruptcy was conceived as a scheme to divert the Debtor\u2019s employees and intellectual property to Envoy, a competing business Dr. Phil founded the day before this case was filed, and leave the Debtor\u2019s business as a shell with nothing more than a repeated loop of re-runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy its own admission in a meet-and-confer between counsel on August 26, 2025, Peteski still has not produced all of Phillip C. McGraw\u2019s emails and text messages (despite his deposition being scheduled to begin in less than 48 hours from the time of such conference), nor has it produced all of the documents concerning Envoy,\u201d Trinity stated in its own filing (via Deadline). \u201cPeteski\u2019s same delay tactics persist. The pattern is so striking that it is more than mere d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu; it is a deliberate rerun, scripted by parties who have decided that the Court\u2019s orders are optional guidance rather than binding directives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Phil’s distribution partner sues his bankrupt media company right back<\/a>Dr. Phil says he’s not “qualified to talk about politics” after years of doing just that<\/a><\/p>\n

In a statement to The A.V. Club, a spokesperson for McGraw\u2019s Peteski Productions said, \u201cThis is nothing more than the continuation of a transparent and highly coordinated strategy of trying to leverage media interest in this case to damage the value of Merit Street through salacious false claims. Peteski has provided substantial and complete information through the pre-trial discovery process relating to the TBN and PBR claims but each time we do they demand more increasingly marginal material. The strategy is designed to increase the cost of this bankruptcy and starve it administratively and has already caused Merit Street Media\u2019s counsel to seek to quit. We look forward to the September 2-3 hearing where Peteski can present evidence which will refute these allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article has been updated to include a statement from Peteski.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil\u2019s contentious legal battle over the bankruptcy of his media venture, Merit Street Media, has taken a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-102937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}