The company behind the "Girls Gone Wild" videos will be run by a federal bankruptcy trustee, a judge ruled after creditors accused the founder of the soft-core pornography franchise of using the business to dodge his debts, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Creditors of GGW Brands LLC, including Steve Wynn's Wynn Las Vegas LLC, requested the trustee to stop the company from diverting cash to Joe Francis, who started the video series. GGW Brands, which claims it has no formal ties to Francis, filed for bankruptcy in Los Angeles in February, listing debt of $16.3 million and assets of less than $50,000. GGW paid more than $800,000 in Francis’s American Express credit card bills so the video maker could maintain his "bad boy" image, the company said in court papers. Creditors said in court filings that those payments and other evidence prove Francis controls GGW. Therefore, the company, based in the Los Angeles area, should pay the judgments, they said. Bankruptcy Judge Sandra Klein said that Wynn Las Vegas had provided compelling evidence that the current company manager is a “figure head” and that Francis controls GGW.
