The Rock, Ex to Investors: Let’s Make a Deal!

Posted by Jose Lambiet , December 26, 2012 Print

Actor Dwayne Johnson, his socialite/financial adviser ex-wife and their movie company are slowly emerging from a heap of financial woes that included investors claiming his ex ripped them off!

White Buffalo, a movie company fronted by The Rock, and several companies controlled by ex-wife Dany Garcia just settled a nasty lawsuit brought by an unhappy investor who claimed to have lost the $750,000 invested with Garcia.

School teacher Eileen Agurcia, according to the Miami-Dade County court papers, agreed to keep the settlement confidential, and the lawyers on both sides declined comment.

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Said one source familiar with the half dozen lawsuits brought against Garcia, White Buffalo, the Garcia-controlled investment firm JDM Partners and well-known Miami accountant Emery Sheer: “I assume Dany paid some cash but I don’t know how much.”

Agurcia was among a half dozen elderly, unsophisticated investors who said they lost a combined $8 million with Garcia’s companies. Agurcia said she entrusted Garcia with $750,000 from the estate of her mother in 2006.

And, according to court documents, Agurcia watched Garcia put $500,000 in a real  estate project downtown Miami, $100,000 in a Miami doll company and $150,000 into White Buffalo.

White Buffalo especially turned into a white elephant as it lost millions on eight movie ventures that led to low-budget flicks that bombed at the box office!

Agurcia claimed she nearly lost all her money, but she becomes the fourth investor to settle with Garcia.

Agurcia’s lawyer, David Milian, described Garcia in these terms in another settled lawsuit: “Dany Garcia was the consummate swindler who, through charisma, charm and effective references to her affiliation with Hollywood’s elite, intimate meetings with the plaintiffs at their homes, and lunches in which she escorted the plaintiffs in her Bentley automobile, sought to gain the plaintiffs’ trust.”

The wrestler-turned-actor Johnson (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Tooth Fairy) was not a defendant in any of the lawsuits but was referred to as a “co-conspirator” for having benefited from Garcia’s actions.

Garcia, meanwhile, is a well-known figure in Miami through her gig as president of the powerful University of Miami Alumni Association.

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