- Joined
- Jun 5, 2017
I followed this rabbit hole and it reveled tons of things on this whole group of people.
Here are the players:
Steven Nia is not his real name. Mr Steven Nia's real name is M. Symak Shafi-Nia. He changed his name to Steven Nia when he was caught defrauding his clients of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Shafi-Nia (California Bar # 118584), according to the affidavits filed by 8 accusers, that Mr. Shafi-Nia would settle his clients law suits and tell his clients that he received one amount and give them a small portion of their settlements or charge the clients for things he and/or his firm, Nia & Associates P O Box 10695, Beverly Hills, CA 90213-3695 had never done.
Mr. Shafi-Nia (California Bar # 118584) resigned with charges pending means the attorney resigned in order to avoid being disbarred, the most serious penalty for a lawyer. Mr. Shafi-Nia is never to practice law in California. As of 03/21/2017 charges are still pending.
With the allegations of fraud looming over his head everywhere he went in Los Angeles Mr. Shafi-Nia changed his name to Steven Nia. Since "running from the law" Mr. Nia figured out that in America it is not so easy to hide from your past he decided to lie his way into Chinese businesses abroad with fake proposals and business plans and has successfully tricked the foreign businesses to allow him to open American divisions of their companies.
He married Ms Angelina Nia only for the sole purpose to hide his money and property in her name so that his assets could not be tracked back to him to pay back the clients he stole money from while he was practicing law.
Angelina Nia aka Angelina Leo, is known to sleep with high level professionals in China in order for her Husband, Steven Nia, to get the contracts from foreign businesses to allow him to open American divisions of their companies. The 5 people I spoke to all say that she is in an unhappy marriage with Mr. Steven Nia and is basically a prisoner to him. I tracked down on facebook and spoke to a friend of the Nia's and she said that the two fight like cat's and dogs and if Mr. Nia does not get his way then he berates her and scolds her like a little child.
Antonio Gellini is basically a fraud, period. After speaking to Mr. Gellini's boyfriend he said that World Film Institute is just a way for Mr. Nia and Mr. Gellini to sucker newbie film makers out of $10,000.00 membership and/or sponsorships with the promise of distributing their works of art globally. We also uncovered that on February 15, 2007, defendant went to the Van Nuys Home Depot. Loss prevention agent Robert Wheeler saw defendant place two cans of paint, each costing $103, into an empty shopping cart and go to the return counter. Defendant told the cashier that he wished to exchange the paint. The cashier alerted loss prevention because he had seen defendant come to the return counter from the inside rather than the outside of the store. The manager told defendant the store would not accept the merchandise for a refund. The store employees asked defendant where he had been in the store immediately before coming to the return counter. Defendant insisted upon returning the merchandise. The employees reiterated that would not be possible whereupon defendant left the store with the cart containing the two paint cans. Defendant never made any effort to pay for the two paint cans. Wheeler stopped defendant outside of the store. He asked him why he had taken the merchandise. Wheeler testified that defendant apologized for taking it out and said it was his wifes birthday. Los Angeles Police Officer Jonathan Hewitt arrested defendant. During a pat down search, he recovered four pieces of identification from defendant. One, a passport, bore defendants name. Each of the other three (a California Drivers license and two gym membership cards) bore a different name. In particular, the drivers license bore the name of Alex Villalobos. A Home Depot security videotape was introduced into evidence which the trial court reviewed.
Following a court trial, Mr. Gellini was convicted of petty theft with a prior ( 666/484, subd. (a).)[1] The court found true three prior convictions which had been alleged to limit the trial courts ability to grant probation ( 1203, subd. (e)(4)). The court sentenced Mr. Gellini to a 16 month state prison term.
Gerry Tesch is still trying to find funding for his film. According to 3 sources involved in the making of the Maradonia movie in Hollywood I was told that Gerry entered into a partnership with Mr. Steven Nia under the business name Maradonia/Nia LLC. In March 2016. However, the Trademark had been cancelled while they were shopping the Maradonia script in Hollywood. According to my sources Mr. Nia lied to the original visual effects house in Hollywood about having full rights to the Maradonia property. Mr. Nia also had a script written for the motion picture however, when the writer was done with the script there was no money coming for his contribution to the project until funding was secured. The writer searched both the USPTO and the Library of congress and found that the Trademark was expired for Maradonia and no one ever spent the 35 dollars to register Maradonia with the Library of Congress. The writer had been told by Mr. Nia on several occasions that all rights were filed for on numerous occasions but the reality was Maradonia was free for the taking since the Trademark was canceled. The writer decided to keep the script to himself until he got paid for his work and the Chinese funding fell through because Mr. Nia could not produce a script for the Chinese investors. Due to the writer withholding the script until payment 3 months later, June 1, 2016 the trademark for Maradonia was reinstated however by this time the writer refused to work with these people, the investors pulled out, the visual effects house pulled out and now Wardour Studios is only but Mr. Steven Nia himself.
Wardour Studios now is a sham. All the names in the "Contact Us" section are fake. I have googled all the names on the list and none of the names brought back any results not in America or in China. The visual effects videos have been removed by the original visual effects companies and their facebook fan page has only 8 likes. There is no phone number listed on the website and basically after further investigation all the department heads listed on the website are famous people's names jumbled up and mixed around. I went to their address listed at Universal Studios and I was told there was no such company and there had been no such company EVER by that name on the Universal Studios Lot.
Summary:
Steven Nia aka M. Symak Shafi-Nia - Fraud
Angelina Nia aka Angelina Leo - Fraud
Antonio Gellini - Fraud
Wardour Studios - Fraud
Gerry Tesch - Still polishing a turd.
Attached Exhibits:
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