Bob, could you explain a little more as to what was happening exactly with the case?
It's all a bit confusing.
What did you want explained more? The kickback scheme?
Yes, the kickback scheme.
In 2001 and 2002, PPPA published three booklets by Danny:
Can We Eat Anything?,
Does God Love Sinners Forever?, and
The Forgotten Day. Later these booklets came out in Spanish too. 3ABN appears to be a co-publisher.
Since PPPA was the publisher, PPPA paid royalties to Danny on sales of these booklets.
3ABN routinely buys things from PPPA, but did not buy these booklets from PPPA. Instead, 3ABN bought them from Danny at a higher price. That way Danny could get profit from the sales as well as royalties from PPPA.
The property tax decision came out in Jan. 2004, and it was crystal clear that Danny could not get royalties from his 3ABN activities. In fact, while the decision noted that Linda was receiving a small amount of royalties from her music, Danny never disclosed that he was receiving a sizable amount of royalties from his books.
In Jan. 2005 3ABN no longer was buying Danny's booklets from Danny. They were instead buying them from Remnant, for the same higher price, even though Remnant didn't stock them and had to have PPPA drop ship them.
Simpson admitted that Remnant paid Danny for those sales. That's a kickback. If Remnant had been the publisher, then maybe the payments could be called royalties, but PPPA was the publisher, not Remnant.
Why in the world would 3ABN but them at a higher price from Remnant instead of from Pacific Press? There is only one reason: To help Danny get his kickbacks.
The amount of the kickback payments I cannot disclose since this information is in the Remnant documents. However, based on Danny's tax returns for 2001 to 2003, one can infer that his profits on those booklets was between 27% and 32%. That means that 3ABN may have paid as much as 27/73 (37%) to 32/68 (47%) more for the booklets by buying them first through Danny, and then through Remnant, instead of directly from PPPA.