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figurehead (living in Florida, engaged in the film business) doing
the bidding of her ex-spouse, Sparkman, in signing some papers for
Mercury Solar PTO. At trial, she evinced practically no knowledge
of Mercury Solar PTO’s organizational documents or its operations
(as evidenced in part by her lack of knowledge about the purported
Mercury Solar PTO record of certificate holders, discussed in the
next section). She testified that operational decisions were made
by Sparkman or Thompson, and that income allocations were
“certainly not * * * something I had a day to day involvement
with”.
C. Economic Interest of Beneficiaries Other Than Sparkman
The stipulated evidence includes a document captioned
“CERTIFICATE RECORD FOR MERCURY SOLAR Beginning this 15th JULY,
1994”. This purported certificate record shows that on July 15,
1994, (the date Mercury Solar PTO was purportedly created) HEH was
“Assigned” 100 units of Mercury Solar PTO; i.e., all the
beneficial units authorized by the Mercury Solar PTO formation
document. The purported certificate record shows that these 100
units were “Released” on July 25, 1995, and that on that same date
Sparkman was “Assigned” 100 units.24 Accordingly, Sparkman then
24 When asked to explain this evidence, Porter testified:
“I think you’d have to ask these questions to Mr. Sparkman or
somebody else”. Previously, she had opined (without reference to
any evidence in the record) that Sparkman had owned 50 units and
HEH had owned 50 units. Sparkman’s testimony provided no
credible insight into this matter. Sparkman seemed to suggest
that both he and HEH received 100 units of Mercury Solar PTO, on
(continued...)
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