{"id":22071,"date":"2025-10-30T01:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T01:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/22071\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T01:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T01:48:11","slug":"dr-phil-loses-court-battle-over-media-startup-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/22071\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil loses court battle over media startup bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Phil McGraw has lost a court battle over his media startup\u2019s bankruptcy, according to the Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, amid allegations that he stripped the company to launch a new venture.<\/p>\n

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Scott Everett on Tuesday rejected McGraw\u2019s attempt to keep the case in Chapter 11, which would have allowed him to maintain control of the bankruptcy process. <\/p>\n

The case will now proceed as a Chapter 7 liquidation, with a trustee overseeing the sale of Merit Street\u2019s assets and related litigation, according to the Hollywood Reporter. <\/p>\n

The court\u2019s decision highlighted evidence suggesting McGraw deleted text messages and attempted to manipulate the bankruptcy by favoring certain creditors over others.<\/p>\n

\u201cCandor to the court is critical,\u201d Everett said in his bench ruling, adding that McGraw\u2019s \u201cbusiness was as dead as a doornail when the bankruptcy was filed.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for McGraw\u2019s production company, Peteski, announced plans to appeal. \u201cWe take great exception to the court\u2019s improper assertions regarding the alleged destruction of evidence, which simply did not happen,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not let this stand given all that Dr. Phil and Peteski Productions have done to protect Merit Street employees, distributors and other interested parties and to resolve this unfortunate situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Central to the case were allegations that McGraw maneuvered to gain majority control of Merit Street to secure investments from family and friends at a $425 million valuation. <\/p>\n

Based on this representation, Trinity Broadcasting increased McGraw\u2019s stake in Merit Street through his production banner Peteski to 70% while reducing its own stake to 30%, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Trinity Broadcasting\u2019s lawsuit claims that after finalizing the deal, McGraw described his plan as a \u201cgangster move\u201d to reduce the network to nothing more than a \u201cpassive minority investor.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil McGraw has lost a court battle over his media startup\u2019s bankruptcy, according to the Hollywood Reporter,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-22071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}