Archie and Jughead, Veronica and Betty and their forever-young comic-book gang at Riverdale High might blush at the storylines written in lawsuits by their creators”™ clashing heirs at Archie Comic Publications Inc. in Mamaroneck.
The real-world scripts, contained in state Supreme Court filings in Manhattan and Westchester County, include several employees”™ claims last year that they were sexually harassed and threatened by Nancy Silberkleit, co-CEO of the comics publishing company since 2009 and widow of Michael Silberkleit, the former chairman and publisher of Archie Comics. The company last summer asked a state judge to prevent Silberkleit from working at the company”™s offices at 325 Fayette Ave. in Mamaroneck and to bar her from contacting company employees and vendors.
In January, Jonathan Goldwater, who shares the co-CEO title and company director duties with Silberkleit and is the brother of Michael Silberkleit”™s late business partner and co-publisher, filed a second lawsuit in Manhattan seeking her removal as company director and officer. If she stays, Goldwater said, the “iconic American company” is in danger of failing and being liquidated.
Silberkleit, a Rye resident, that same week went to state Supreme Court in White Plains with a lawsuit that seeks $100 million in damages from Goldwater and Archie Comics. She claimed that Goldwater since 2008 repeatedly has defamed her character and reputation with employees and the press, inflicting severe emotional distress. The co-CEO, she said, was undermining her to gain control of Archie Comics and force a dissolution of the company that would keep Silberkleit from profiting from its break-up.
Silberkleit”™s distress might have been compounded this month by a $500 fine levied against her by state Supreme Court Justice Shirley W. Kornreich, who presides over the company”™s related court cases in Manhattan. Kornreich found the defendant in contempt for failing to obey her earlier order to stop contacting and harassing Archie employees.
Silberkleit this month was barred by Kornreich from the company”™s Mamaroneck office while the case against her is pending. The judge also limited the co-CEO”™s work for the company to theatrical and scholastic matters, which must be discussed with Goldwater, and barred Silberkleit from carrying through on projects in those areas without prior review by Goldwater and the company attorney.
Goldwater in his lawsuit said he recently learned that Silberkleit signed a contract on behalf of Archie Comics with a theatrical production company to bring Archie Andrews and his Riverdale ensemble to the Broadway stage. The “opaque” deal could scare off television producers interested in creating a TV show and series starring the enduring cartoon characters, he argued.
Goldwater said his co-CEO”™s negotiated Broadway deal further confirms that the company”™s corporate governance structure is “simply unworkable” with Silberkleit in her position and could cause the company “irreparable damage.”
A champion of literacy, Silberkleit developed a comic book fair program that allows schools and fundraising groups to share in sales of Archie comics at events. The scholastic project has cost the company more than $100,000 in out-of-pocket expenses and has produced no more than $10,000 in gross revenue, Goldwater said. Though Goldwater killed the project, his co-CEO has continued to pursue it.
Silberkleit in her lawsuit said Goldwater pulled the plug on the company”™s advertising for her scholastic programs. That move has resulted in the cancellation of contracts with booksellers and elementary schools in the U.S and Canada and has caused a rift between Silberkleit and nonprofit partners in her program, she said.
Citing a three-year pattern of “humiliating and degrading conduct” by Goldwater, Silberkleit claimed he had her work files tossed in a trash bin, cancelled her Internet access at the company and corporate gas credit card and placed “bodyguards” outside her office door. Her car tires have been flattened with nails, she said in her court complaint.
Goldwater in a court affidavit last August said Silberkleit”™s “inappropriate” office behavior had created a “pervasive hostile work environment” that could drive some of the publisher”™s most senior and creative employees from the company. With fewer than 25 office employees, Archie Comics operates in a “close, informal collaboration” that Silberkleit has disrupted, harming both morale and efficiency, he said.
Goldwater is the brother of the late Richard Goldwater, the former Archie Comics co-publisher who died in 2007. Goldwater and his brother”™s estate hold a 50 percent ownership stake in the company.
The estate of Michael Silberkleit also holds a 50 percent equity interest in the company.
The Goldwaters and Michael Silberkleit are the sons of two of the founders of Archie Comics, John Goldwater and Louis Silberkleit, who started the company with a third partner in 1939 in New York. Two years later, John Goldwater created the comic character Archie Andrews, modeling him after young Mickey Rooney”™s then-popular film character, Andy Hardy. The founders”™ sons moved the company to an industrial section of Mamaroneck about 30 years ago.
The company has sold 1.5 billion comics worldwide, publishing in a dozen foreign languages. Yet Goldwater in court papers said Archie Comics needs outside capital “to realize its potential.”
Though potential equity investors have shown interest in the company, Goldwater said Silberkleit has adamantly opposed any deal that would dilute the Silberkleit 50 percent ownership interest.
