Curt Schilling wants a lawsuit claiming the he misled stat officials dismissed by a Rhode Island judge, saying it was “implausible” that he intentionally duped a state economic development agency to get a loan for his video game company.
The former Boston Red Sox pitcher is facing a $75 million lawsuit over a loan guarantee the state agency made for a non-defunct video game company, 38 Studios.
Curt Schilling is accused in the lawsuit of fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy by misleading the state board into signing off on a loan guarantee, The Associated Press reported. The suit claims that executives of the startup company, 38 Studios, withheld information about its finances, including that it didn’t have all the money necessary to complete a video game project in Providence.
Schilling is seeking a dismissal claiming that he and other defendants did indeed give all the company’s financial information to Economic Development Corp. officials. He said state officials were told that the company needed $75 million but only had $50 million. The state estimated that the game would end up costing in excess of $125 million.
“Given the EDC’s admissions concerning 38 Studios’ disclosures to the EDC’s executives, attorneys and financial advisor, it is impossible for the EDC simultaneously to claim that the 38 Studios defendants supposedly defrauded the EDC,” Curt Schilling’s filing says.
The state has claimed that 38 Studios was destined to fail, the Providence Journal reported. The state claims in its lawsuit that Curt Schilling and the 13 other defendants should have known that the company would be insolvent by 2014.
Schilling’s company was initially formed in 2006 as Green Monster Games LLC. In February 2012 the company released its only title, a single-player action role-playing game called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning . It received mixed reviews.Curt Schilling has called the lawsuit political, saying Connecticut Gov. Lincoln Chafee had it out for 38 Studios and wanted the company to close.