Array Seka - Inside Seka

This was a serious player.

Fred had Jenner and Block, who were also huge. I had never dealt with attorneys before, but I knew I was in for the fight of my life.

I walked out of David Shippers’ office after giving him a $5,000 retaining fee, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay, let the games begin.”

The battle had begun.

Although the business was mine, it was at the time named Fred Marks, Ltd. The court, however, legally turned it over to me until the actual trial. What I had to do was put 50% of it into an escrow interest-bearing account, and whoever won in the end was the one who got the business and the account.

Clearly, this was winner take all.

Money at the time was extremely tight. I had to run the company, take care of my bills, pay expensive lawyers, and put 50% away that I could not touch. Stuck out in the suburbs of Chicago, it was also pretty hard to maneuver back and forth to the city three times a week for endless meetings with lawyers.

It wasn’t exactly the best year of my life.

I told my friend Barbara I desperately needed to find an apartment downtown. I wanted one with two bedrooms, as I needed one for my office. I also asked for a terrace, both for my little dog and because of my claustrophobia and needing someplace to get outside.

She found me just what I wanted, right in the heart of the Gold Coast of Chicago, a frou-frou neighborhood. Pleased with it, I ended up living in that building for twenty-five years. The following year, 1982, I bought it. Although the rent was extremely reasonable, it was still more than what I was paying in the ’burbs, and I also had to pay for parking.

It was all an additional strain on me. I couldn’t shop for clothes and had to watch what I bought at the grocery store and make sure the rent got paid. An awful lot of Friday and Saturday nights were spent home alone because I just didn’t have the money.

I knew Fred was out clubbing but I didn’t want to put myself in any kind of jeopardizing position. He didn’t play by the rules, so I didn’t know what he could conjure up as far as my activities and who I was socializing with. I thought it was best to stay quiet and be by myself for the most part. It was like being in solitary confinement for a year and a half.

I thought Fred was a friend and had been proven wrong. The whole situation was extremely disheartening. I didn’t mind giving him half my earnings because of all he had done for me, but I saw this as pure greed and his not giving a rat’s ass about anyone but himself. I’d sit across the room from Fred and Gary and wanted to rip their eyes out. Fred always wore sunglasses because it was like someone playing poker, not wanting to show his hand. The lawyers actually made him take off his glasses one day. Fred was like a clear piece of glass. No emotion. Nothing. Gary was the polar opposite. He was highly emotional and didn’t really know how to play poker, if you will. He would get upset at the questions and try to place all the blame on me. I was attacking his lover. He was like a puppet — he’d do anything Fred told him to, even if it meant perjuring himself. Gary thought Fred was emotionally stronger than me, but he had never seen the likes of me before. One of the things that always get me through life is my tenacity. I’m like a pit bull. I don’t give up until I’m done, I win, or I’m dead.

With all kinds of depositions and legal maneuvering, it was extremely draining and I got very thin during this time. It went back and forth, forth and back over months, with my finding out more things Fred had done. Because of his familiarity with the law, David Shippers tried the unusual strategy of going after Fred under the RICO statutes. Under RICO — usually reserved for Mafiosos and other organized crime figures — there are five charges and you have to prove three out of the five for a winning case.

In my head and in my heart, I felt I was going to win, but it was overwhelmingly exhausting and there was always that doubt things could go wrong. Consumed by this legal battle, I had to hire more attorneys to handle what few movie contracts, appearances, and entertainment business I was able to squeeze in. I really didn’t have the time or energy to wholeheartedly pursue my career. One of my lawyers, Charley Witz, was crazier than a loon, but quite nice. Very eccentric. He would make you nuts with his dotting every i and crossing every t. Incredibly precise. It was nerve-wracking, but he did teach me how to read legal documents.

And boy were there documents.

One of the few positive things that came out of all this was there was a ton of publicity. It went AP wire to wire, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and all the other newspapers from coast to coast. You couldn’t pay for that kind of publicity. I was doing TV interviews with Larry King, Phil Donahue, and all kinds of morning shows from New York to L.A.

Larry and Donahue were both very respectful. I was nervous with Larry the first time because I always watched his show and liked him. But he was very pleasant. He doesn’t try to jackpot you and pull one over on you. He gave me an open invite to come back, and I did several times.

It was kind of interesting, as I was doing interviews on my legal situation instead of on the adult entertainment business. I was an entertainer using the RICO Act to sue someone on criminal charges as opposed to civil charges. Nobody had ever used the RICO Act in this manner. The possible outcome was the loser facing triple damages, attorney fees, and getting jail time as well. It involved wire fraud on the telephone, mail fraud, as well as charges for cooking the books.

After one of the depositions, Fred and Gary left and Mr. Shippers suddenly shot me a triumphant look. “This is a slam dunk. We have five out of five.”

I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but it still was far from over.

Mr. Shippers sent Fred’s lawyers a letter proving we had, in fact, proven the five counts. He wanted to know if they wanted to go to trial or settle out of court. I’d already invested a year and a half of my life and probably spent an easy $90,000. Back then that was a fortune, besides all the bookings I lost because of being so involved with this.

The first response we got back was they were willing to spend $2,000 to settle out of court and they wanted half the money in the escrow account. That was pretty stupid. Then they came back with another offer that was just as outrageous. By the time the third offer came I knew I had won, and knew it was in my best interest to settle rather than go through another long, drawn-out trial, which probably would have been another year. Plus, there was a lot of money in the escrow account.

They wanted to settle for $10,000. I would keep the business and all the cash in the account. At this point I felt I had been rode hard and put up wet. I was done. I took it.

I finally convinced myself I was satisfied, although deep down I wanted another five or ten pounds of flesh for what had been done to me. He had completely redone his house and driveway with the money from our business. But I felt like I had been stuck in mud this whole time. I didn’t want another year of anguish. I was content with my decision, and also vowed nobody would ever own part of me again. I could continue with my life; I had grown up once more.

The business’ name was changed to Pearl Productions, Ltd. I got the name from the late, great Janis Joplin and her first solo album, Pearl. As I started to piece my life back together, I heard through the grapevine that Fred and Gary were very sick. They were early AIDS cases. Nobody knew much about the disease at that time. They were in and out of the hospital with pneumonia. Both died within the year.