BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley obtained a preliminary injunction Friday against the operators of a videography business that allegedly failed to deliver prepaid wedding videos to dozens of customers.
Under the terms of the preliminary injunction, SureShot Portraits LLC, Jesse Clark, the former owner of SureShot, and Keith Morin, a former employee of SureShot, are prohibited from engaging in videography or wedding-related services and from accepting consumer deposits from any type of business in the future. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Judith Fabricant also entered a preliminary injunction against Clark's wife who has cooperated with the state in this matter.
"We allege that SureShot took advantage of dozens of newlyweds, and this injunction rightfully prohibits them from doing business in this state," Coakley said. "Our office will continue our efforts to recover the wedding videos and money lost by these couples."
Coakley's office received 92 consumer complaints about SureShot from consumers who alleged that they either gave deposits or paid the defendants in full for wedding videos that were never delivered. Consumers allegedly paid between $800 and $2,000 each for a wedding video package followed by SureShot giving excuses to keep customers waiting for videos that never came.
Disappointed consumers posted reviews of their experiences with SureShot on business rating websites. The defendants allegedly responded to the negative reviews by changing their business name at least twice and by threatening to hold overdue wedding videos hostage unless customers removed the online reviews. Additionally, the defendants allegedly used their control of wedding footage to make additional demands, such as requiring one customer to pay an added $100 for a copy of the raw footage from the wedding, and then failing to deliver.
Coakley's office filed a lawsuit earlier in January seeking more than $75,000 in restitution, civil penalties and the full recovery of all existing event footage. Coakley previously obtained a temporary restraining order to freeze each of the defendants' assets and prevent them from destroying any records or footage.
Mass. AG obtains preliminary injunction against videography business
