Dinamation Sues Irvine Accountant for $10.6 Million
Dinamation Inc., the Irvine manufacturer of life-sized mechanical dinosaurs, sued its former accountant and treasurer Wednesday for $10.6 million, alleging that he gave improper financial advice, filed false federal and state tax returns and false federal wage reports and committed a host of other wrongdoings.
The suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, contains 60 separate allegations.
The accountant, Robert R. Redwitz, reached at his office in Irvine late Wednesday, said he was not aware of the suit and would have no comment until he could review it.
“It is so preposterous I just cannot say anything about it,” Redwitz said.
In addition to providing Dinamation’s accounting services, Redwitz was a company director and its corporate treasurer from 1989 until those relationships were severed on Nov. 23, 1991, according to the 125-page lawsuit.
Redwitz and his company, Robert R. Redwitz & Co., were paid $1.7 million by Dinamation for financial advice and services from 1989 through November, 1991, according to the suit, which alleges that the payments represented an overbilling of at least $300,000.
The suit does not specify why the accountant allegedly filed false reports and provided improper advice about such things as Dinamation’s short-lived incorporation of a European subsidiary several years ago.
But it does allege that Redwitz’s actions have exposed Dinamation to federal and state tax penalties. His actions also damaged the company’s relationships with its banks and its employees, whose medical insurance at one point was allowed to lapse, the suit says.
The suit says Dinamation has incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal and accounting fees to repair the problems that Redwitz allegedly caused.
Dinamation, founded by former airline pilot Chris Mays in 1982, manufactures life-sized, scientifically accurate mechanized models of dinosaurs. The company’s major clients are museums, although some of its early dinosaurs were purchased by a Japanese amusement park.
The company is privately owned, and its financial reports are not public. In a 1989 interview, however, Mays said sales had reached $12 million a year.
Three months ago, the company said it would combine its two manufacturing sites in Tustin into a single, 66,000-square-foot facility in Irvine under a five-year, $1.3-million lease.
