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| ![](images/adjuster/transparent.gif) | Prometheus The Trickster, aka Munir Uwaydah, M.D., Bamboozles The Los Angeles Superior Court Into A Fraudulent Six Million Dollar Judgment Against A Beirut Businessman. Part I. By Lonce LaMon - August 17, 2011
I think you’re going to be amazed by this story. It’s the story of Khaled Ghandour, a Lebanese businessman, and his unfortunate encounter with Dr. Munir Uwaydah.
It all started for Ghandour with Uwaydah in the year 2001, soon after Munir came up with his alter ego company, Prometheus Health Imaging, Inc. Uwaydah set it up as a Delaware corporation.
It makes sense for Dr. Uwaydah to name his company after Prometheus, right out of Greek mythology, who was the titan who stole fire from the gods, gave it to man, and then was punished by Zeus for that act of hubris by chaining him to a rock so a giant eagle could peck at his liver each day.
The symbolism is right there. Uwaydah with his godlike hubris thinks the rules of society, and of court discovery and judicial procedure, don’t apply to him. He tries to manipulate and trick the courts, and his opponents, ad nauseum, with his arrogant games and tricks.
Prometheus was also a trickster. He tricked Zeus with the two sacrificial offerings. And Zeus punished him. One cannot defy the gods.
Uwaydah is one of the most egregious fraudsters in the history of California Workers’ Compensation fraud. He has ripped off scores of millions of dollars from the California system, and the count is still rising. But his frauds are not in any way confined to the system of Workers’ Compensation or to California. Uwaydah has no particular turf or specific business when it comes to being a con-man. He is an international con-artist committing crimes against humanity all over the planet Earth.
Ghandour hooked up with Uwaydah in Beirut, Lebanon, Uwaydah’s home city. They are both Lebanese, and they discussed the idea of creating walk-in clinics worldwide where people can get computer tomography (CT) scans without a doctor’s prescription. Uwaydah told Ghandour that this was a concept that was going to make them a bloody fortune, and so persuasive was Uwaydah in selling him on going into business with him, that Ghandour gave Uwaydah a sum of $300,000 which Uwaydah put into his Beirut bank account.
Beirut, Lebanon is a sophisticated, highly cultural city on the Mediterranean Sea. It was in Beirut that Khaled Ghandour met with Munir Uwaydah and wound up giving him a $300,000 investment in exchange for 450 shares of stock in Prometheus Health Imaging. Of course, Uwaydah took the money and ran.
The deal was that Ghandour’s $300,000 was in exchange for 450 shares of stock in Prometheus Health Imaging, Inc. It was considered a start-up amount to get the business going. Allegedly, Ghandour signed a copy of the corporation bi-laws, and was promised the past financial statements, to date, of Prometheus for his review. He was promised follow-ups and progress reports, naturally.
But, after the men parted company in Beirut, Ghandour didn’t hear from Uwaydah. He tried to contact him only to get no response. Months went by. Uwaydah was unreachable. There was just silence. Uwaydah virtually played a disappearing act.
This sounds like a typical con-game already, right off the bat.
Ghandour undertook investigations, and spent a great deal of time and money to wind up finding out that the deal really was a fraud and the project was fictitious. He found out Prometheus Health Imaging, Inc. was just a shell company and alter ego for Uwaydah himself and that its ownership documents showed it was owned by Dr. Uwaydah and someone named Salim Hayek. This proved that Ghandour had no shares in Prometheus and that his ownership of 450 shares was only an act of fraud committed by Uwaydah. Bottom line: Uwaydah deceived Khaled Ghandour about the 450 shares of stock and simply took off with his money, to the tune of 300 grand in U.S. dollars.
During this time or soon thereafter, Ghandour received a fax from Marissa Schermbeck, who was Uwaydah’s business administrator. The document stated that she was on the Prometheus Board of Directors. Ghandour was then contacted by Uwaydah’s attorney, Tarek Nahhas (one of a plethora of attorneys Uwaydah has used in the past 10 years) and was informed he had to attend a meeting at the May Fair Intercontinental Hotel in London to discuss the financial situation of Prometheus.
Now, there was a glimmer of hope that he, Ghandour, had possibly not been conned. So, with hope, on the date and time Uwaydah set, Khaled Ghandour was there at the hotel ready to go. But nobody else showed up. Uwaydah completely stood him up. It was, indeed, all a hoax.
This is the posh hotel in London where Uwaydah was supposed to meet Khaled Ghandour for a meeting about Prometheus. But Uwaydah stood Ghandour up.
So, Ghandour accepted the situation and filed a lawsuit in the appropriate Beirut court finally against Uwaydah after mistakenly filing two suits in the wrong courts. Once he got the jurisdiction right and that Beirut court announced its full jurisdiction, he was good to go.
Moving right along, in spite of his losses, Ghandour went on with his business and life, and opened up two clinics in Saudi Arabia. The details of the exact services provided by the two clinics is not clear from the available records; however, Uwaydah got wind of them obviously and decided to sue Ghandour for stealing his intellectual property. Out of the blue, in the Summer of 2008, Ghandour received a Complaint at his address in Lebanon from Uwaydah which Uwaydah filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Santa Monica branch.
Clearly, Ghandour must have been astonished. Why was he being sued in Los Angeles Superior Court for a deal they made in Lebanon? And over a deal that cost Ghandour $300,000 which Uwaydah brazenly stole from him! What did this have to do with the United States? Not only was it crazy that Uwaydah robbed him of $300,000 and sent him on a wild goose chase to London, but it was insane that Uwaydah would now after extreme insult and injury of ripping him off and conning him out of 300 grand, have the effrontery to sue him for theft of intellectual property. And in Los Angeles!
In the Complaint, Uwaydah referred to and attached a copy of the Prometheus bi-laws which stated the principle place of business for Prometheus was in Los Angeles, and that all litigations and disputes would take place in Los Angeles within the L.A. court systems’ jurisdiction. The bi-laws had Ghandour’s signature on them.
Well, accusations went back and forth between the two parties, each accusing the other of forging documents. But it was Ghandour’s accusation that Uwaydah fabricated the bi-laws documents and forged Ghandour’s signature on a different set of bi-laws from the ones Ghandour actually read and signed in Beirut. Ghandour never agreed, according to his testimony, to make the Los Angeles courts jurisdictional for his business investment in Prometheus.
It’s interesting that this took place in 2008. Because it was during 2008 that Uwaydah created a set of documents he filed in the family court in Santa Monica, claiming full custody of his twin children he had sired with his common law wife, a young German woman named Julia Kaeuffler, who lived with Uwaydah in Marina Del Rey, California.
Julia Kaueffler with her twin children from Munir Uwaydah. Photo circa 2008.
Uwaydah forged Julia Kaeuffler’s signature on the documents while she was visiting her parents in Germany, and it was another mistress of Uwaydah’s who had a younger son of his, who discovered the false and forged family law documents giving custody to Uwaydah and away from Julia Kaeuffler, while searching the court records with her own attorney in West Los Angeles in an effort to protect her own child from being stolen by Uwaydah. If it hadn’t been for that other mistress phoning and emailing to warn Julia Kaeuffler of what she saw in the filed court records, Uwaydah would have gained the legal right to steal Julia’s young two-year-old twins away from her and take them to Lebanon!
Uwaydah has a pattern and practice of using wives and concubines to bear his children and then manipulating custody of their children away from them and shuttling the children to his mother’s house to be raised in Beirut. He acts like a Turkish sultan with an Oedipus Complex.
In Lebanon, the father traditionally has the more powerful rights on child custody, so children taken there are not easily recovered by mothers. But it seems that Uwaydah’s biological mother is his real psychological wife, just like Oedipus’s mother was in the Greek myth and play by Sophocles. Also, Uwaydah’s father is now dead. And Uwaydah involves his mother in many of his frauds.
This picture tells the whole story. Here's Munir Uwaydah (Oedipus) with his mother (psychological wife) as they hold his twins by Julia Kaueffler. It's as if he manipulates mistresses into surrogate mothers so he can have the children with his mother. Photo circa 2007.
Yes, Uwaydah in multiple ways steps right out of ancient Greece mythology. Not only is he headed for tragedy himself, but he’s caused so much tragedy to others--such as his complicity in the circumstances surrounding the 2008 death of aspiring model and actress, Juliana Redding.
It’s not too hard to suppose with this poignantly verified case of Uwaydah forging Julia Kaeuffler’s signature on the child custody papers, that Uwaydah could have done another forgery, as well, to Khaled Ghandour. If he did it to Julia, why wouldn’t he do it to Ghandour? Forgeries could be his modus operandi.
And what he also does is constantly accuse the other party of his own crimes. This is his pattern and practice of never-ending psychological projection. Evil people do this obsessively. They see their own dark actions in the other person. It’s called in the Jungian parlance “projection of the shadow”.
So, I tend to believe that Uwaydah forged the documents and Ghandour came up with the authentic ones. Uwaydah, in being a document forger, naturally accuses Ghandour of forging documents. He’s like the husband who accuses his wife of cheating on him, when in reality she’s an angel who is completely faithful to him, because in reality he’s cheating on her, and by accusing her of infidelity he thinks he is leading the dog off the scent. This psychological pattern is always played by the guilty as they project their crimes onto a scapegoat.
So, Ghandour answers the Complaint; he writes to the L.A. Superior Court in Santa Monica and states that none of Uwaydah’s allegations are true. The Complaint got to him in Lebanon, just two days before an upcoming hearing, but he answered extremely well, with excellent English in a very formal, legal style. However, his answer wasn’t written on court document papers with the numbers of the lines on the sides, plus he didn’t date his answer. Also, he included no court fees for filing his answer.
He most likely just didn’t know about the fees. And why should he? He’s a Lebanese businessman who’s never been to California and has little to no experience with American court procedure. So, his answer most likely did not get into the official court documents and was not seen by the Judge. This i
He stated in his answer, which I got a copy of from a colleague in November of 2010, that he was never a resident in Los Angeles and that he has no businesses in Los Angeles or any other U.S. city. However, his answer was then missing months later when I looked directly in the court file. That was odd—that it was in there at one time for my colleague, and then it wasn’t in there later on. It gave me the sense somebody moved it.
Someone had hand written on the copy I got: Rec’d 8/4/08, no fee enclosed / no return address, Answer? Place in File. Then there’s a signature that’s kind of legible and looks like a D. McKinny.
Khaled Ghandour was served with the Complaint also at his alleged Los Angeles area address in Oxnard, California. In the Complaint it was alleged that Ghandour did live in Lebanon but that he also had an address in the Los Angeles area, specifically in Ventura County. So, he was served at his address at 2021 Eastman Avenue, Suite B, Oxnard, California 93030.
Sherwood Financial Investments can be seen etched on this smokey glass door. This is the real estate business of Kelly Soo Park where some impostor posing as Khaled Ghandour may have been served.
But an investigation of that address shows that it’s in a commercial building with an etched glass doorway showing several businesses doing business in Suite B. One of them is Sherwood Financial Investments, which is Kelly Soo Park’s business. Kelly Soo is the accused murderer of Juliana Redding, Uwaydah’s late former girlfriend. Another name on the door is Trainer-Profiles, which obviously has to do with horse racing and is clearly related to Uwaydah. And even another one is Bubble Bakery—freshly baked handmade soaps. Is that where compound drugs are made? In a small office inside can be seen various accessory products for automobiles, or race cars. This clearly connects to Kelly Soo Park’s boyfriend, Ronnie Wayne Case, who is a race car driver.
So, Khaled Ghandour got served at Kelly Soo Park’s ostensible business address, where these other Uwaydah front businesses are housed. Someone must have been at the office to sign as Khaled Ghandour when he was served.
This is Unit A in the same building where the court record shows Khaled Ghandour was served in Unit B.
The Trial approaches. In the Complaint it alleges that Ghandour stole Uwaydah’s intellectual property and is now running two imaging clinics in Saudi Arabia according to the Franchise plan. In Uwaydah’s (Prometheus’s) Franchise agreement, it stated that a Franchisee had to pay $100,000 each year for ten years to Prometheus Health Imaging, plus a certain yearly percentage of Gross Receipts, plus another certain yearly percentage of Net Earnings.
So, in the Complaint, numbers are listed, based upon what Ghandour allegedly has earned by virtue of the Prometheus business plan, and what Ghandour now allegedly owes Prometheus. It listed numbers of over seven million dollars, over four million dollars, and other numbers. But, then, in the Trial Brief, prepared by Uwaydah’s lawyer, Richard Green of Century City, it states that Khaled Ghandour has stipulated to being responsible to Prometheus for only $3,000,000 and that he, Ghandour, admits to a net worth of $12,000,000.
So, the bizarre thing is that in this Trial Brief, Khaled Ghandour allegedly admits that he understands that he is responsible to pay Prometheus at least $3,000,000 but no more than $3,000,000. And in the same Trial Brief, he, Ghandour, stipulates to owing Uwaydah personally $250,000, but only $250,000. No more.
Henceforth, Ghandour allegedly stipulates, in total, to being responsible for a sum to both Prometheus Health Imaging and Dr. Uwaydah, combined, of $3,250,000. And, of course, Prometheus Health Imaging and Dr. Uwaydah are one and the same. Prometheus is simply an alter-ego of Uwaydah.
But, the Complaint is demanding much more than $3,250,000. Ghandour shows up at Trial. Or, so the Judge thought, and allegedly so Richard Green, Uwaydah’s attorney, thought. But, it wasn’t really Khaled Ghandour. It was an actor. Could any screenplay writer of fiction make this up? This is definitely a case of truth being stranger than fiction.
Apparently, Munir Uwaydah paid some man to play the role of Ghandour in the Los Angeles Superior civil court room in Santa Monica, when the real Khaled Ghandour was most likely back at his home in Beirut, Lebanon, actively suing Uwaydah for ripping him off of $300,000 in Beirut. But the actor played the role so well that the judge, Jacqueline Connor, believed the actor and consequently awarded Uwaydah $3,000,000 for Prometheus Health Imaging, and another $3,000,000 to Uwaydah personally.
As usual, Munir Uwaydah’s modus operandi is to throw money at people to sell their souls to the devil, and obviously here, some money-worshipping actor took the dough from Uwaydah and played Ghandour on the courtroom stage.
Uwaydah did not personally show up in court. He never shows up in court. This is his usual game. He manipulates everyone from behind the scenes. He makes other people do his dirty work, just like he may have made Kelly Soo Park commit murder for him.
As is his usual pattern and practice with court appearances as well as with depositions, he had an excuse for getting out of making his personal appearance in court for his suit against Ghandour. He claimed he had just had open heart surgery, and got a doctor he had known from the American University of Beirut named Wael Jaber to write a letter to the court stating he had operated on Uwaydah just recently and that Uwaydah required to be precluded from any stressful activities, including court hearings. But as it turns out, Wael Jaber, M.D., from the Cleveland Clinic, is a cardiologist but not a surgeon. So, this is just more of the usual Uwaydah manipulating people.
Now, Uwaydah had a $6,000,000 judgment against Khaled Ghandour of Beirut from the Los Angeles Superior Court. And it was purely fraudulent.
To be continued…
some edits and refinements made on May 16th 2017, by Lonce LaMon, lonce@adjustercom; all rights reserved
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