If you were like me, you saw headline on your Internet travels about Stan Lee being held up by armed robbers outside his home. And if you were like me, you did not click through. After all, the story seem pretty simple. A point was made in the reporting of the turmoil his life has been in the last few months that Lee doesn’t trust banks and has stashes of cash lying around his house. The robbers must of saw that bit of reporting and sprung into action.
Of course, that is probably what Keya Morgan wanted us to think.
Unfortunately for him, this was one narrative that Morgan could not control. Not long after that story broke came a story this Tuesday about Morgan being arrested for filing a false police report in relation to the burglary claims above. Then, on Wednesday, news of a temporary restraining order granted to Lee against Morgan in conjunction with an elder abuse case that the Los Angeles Police Department was investigating.
Now we know that the story wasn’t all that simple at all. Just like every story in the Lee’s life these last few months, this one was a sad, messy one, a story where a lot of things are not what they seem. But, thankfully, one where there might be a small glimmer of a happy ending to it.
Back in April, we here at FBOL wrote about a two part PR disaster that hit Lee’s camp and cause many of his fans and friends to become concerned about his general welfare. The first was an appearance at the Silicon Valley Comic Con where Stan Lee seemed sick, addled and barely coherent. The next was a story in The Hollywood Reporter that detailed a struggle of various parties to take control of Lee’s brand, finances and life.
Keya Morgan was presented as the villain of both events. He was the one who took the sickly Lee to SVCC, and was one of the people annoyed with Lee’s weakness at his signings. And the Hollywood Reporter portrayed him as a Machiavellian schemer who was trying (and succeeding) to consolidate control over Lee for his own nefarious purposes by ousting long time Lee associates Jerry Olivarez and Max Anderson. At the time, most of that image was through accounts from anonymous congoers and ex-employees like Anderson and Olivarez that Morgan had fired. This time we have legal documents to tell the other side of Morgan’s particular part of the story.
Bleeding Cool has received copies of the restraining order and the police report that led to Keya Morgan (whose real name is revealed in court documents to be Keyarash Mazhari) to be arrested. I’ll try to put the information provided into some sort of narrative.
By February of this year, Morgan had just about completed his power play. He eliminated rivals to Stan Lee’s attention such as Anderson from Lee’s employ. He had fired a number of Lee’s associates, employees and assistants and began controlling the access others had to Lee. One of the people fired by Morgan was Lee’s attorney Tom Lallas, who was replaced by another lawyer of Morgan’s choosing.
Lallas attempted contact Lee directly to get a reason from him why he was let go, but was never able to get direct contact with him due to Morgan’s interference. After those futile efforts, Lallas contacted law enforcement to do a wellness check on Lee.
The wellness check was conducted on May 30th. Detective Gabriel Munoz arrived with an Adult Protective Services Social Worker and another detective at the Lee residence at 1:15 pm PDT. They instructed the security guards on duty at the time, Leon Youngblood and Richard Shepp, that they were to speak to Lee alone and that no one, especially Morgan, was to interrupt them or be in the room during the examination.
Morgan arrived at the house around a half hour later. Youngblood told Morgan what Detective Munoz had told him, that the police and APS were doing a wellness check and nobody was allowed in. Morgan left to supposedly “speak to an attorney” but called Youngblood back two times, at 1:53 and again at 2:05 to check on Lee’s status.
Then, at 2:17, He called 911. Even though he was aware that the people inside were law enforcement employees on premises doing a wellness check, he told the 911 dispatcher that the three unknown people who had entered the building and locked him out, essentially holding Stan Lee hostage, if not worse.
Why would Morgan do this? Well, the investigators specifically wanted to interview Lee without Morgan in the room so the latter could not influence the former’s answers in any way. But if Morgan could have the interview interrupted in some way, like, say having the police inside the building have to deal will a whole bunch of cop cars blaring outside the building, then the wellness check would have to deal with a more agitated Stan Lee, a man with serious short-term memory issue to begin with, and have them try to lead him back into the line of questioning they were asking. It would have been a possible way for Morgan control the interview without being in the room. But that’s just a theory.
If that was what Morgan was going for, then it didn’t work. The police response to the 911 call arrived just as the interview with Lee was wrapping up. Youngblood was briefly taken into custody, but Detective Munoz was able to sort everything out without hampering his investigation. The information gathered was essential in gaining the emergency restraining order.
That was his first false 911 call. He was arrested for making two. The second one was for the armed robbery call which came around 7:30 pm PDT on May 31st .
Morgan’s 911 call, made states that there was a belligerent, armed man inside Lee’s house that he wanted to leave. The man was threatening to “kick Morgan’s ass” and had a gun on his waist. He eventually left the building, but Morgan still wanted the police to come.
And came they did–in eight patrol units and one helicopter. And what did they find? According to Detective Munoz’s crime summary for the arrest warrant for Morgan, the man threatening to “kick Morgan’s ass” was Richard Shepp, the bodyguard mentioned from the day before. The reason why Shepp was angry was because Morgan wanted him and Youngblood to sign a non-disclosure agreement, one that Morgan made every employee in the house with Lee sign. When the pair refused, Morgan fired them and refused to pay them for their time. You might say that was a brave thing to do to a man who was armed. It would have, if Shepp or Youngblood were armed. They weren’t. The police officers arriving on the scene searched both of them for weapons and found nothing but the permits that allow them to legally wield the firearms they need for their jobs. No weapons were on their hips or any other part of their bodies.
Both men were briefly detained at the scene but released when it became clear they were not a threat. The only thing the cops did was escort the men off the premises at the request of Lee and Morgan.
So, Morgan wanted the police to come and remove an angry ex-employee and said employee was carrying a gun “on his waist” so the cops would come as fast as they could. That’s fake 911 call number two and another reason why Morgan was arrested.
What makes this stranger is that the first media story I could find about the armed robbery appeared at 10:55 am EDT the next morning, just over 12 hours after the event happened. It was an article for the Daily Mail written by their “West Coast Correspondent” Ryan Parry. Parry quotes a “source who witnessed incident” for his story, a source “who asked not to be named.” What’s weird is that this “eyewitness” gave Parry a version of events that were totally different that what police say really happened, yet still kind of hewed close to what Morgan told the police.
Here are the quote from Parry’s “source,” taken directly from the story on the Daily Mail’s website:
A source who witnessed the incident said things went bad following an angry confrontation between Lee and one of the men.
‘There was two guys standing outside demanding money, they were shouting,’ the source said.
‘There was a confrontation with Stan in front of his house, but Stan doesn’t know either of them. One guy was saying “I want my money”.
‘But when everyone realized the men had guns everyone retreated inside. Stan’s lawyer, business partner and a nurse were with him at the house.
‘At some point the men took out their guns and were pointing them around so the police were called.’
The source, who asked not to be named, said up to 20 cops arrived and police helicopters whirred above.
‘It was crazy, the cops had their guns drawn and there were spotlights from two police helicopters, it was very scary and pretty intense,’ the source said.
‘The cops said, “Put your hands up”, so the guys got on their knees and on the floor, they were handcuffed and they were put in the car.’
The witness claimed that the men, one white, one black, had tossed their guns before the police arrived, but it’s claimed the officers later retrieved the weapons.
Yes, the “official” story in print was that Shepp had issue with Lee, not Morgan, that Stan didn’t know Shepp even though he was one of his bodyguards, that they waived guns the police say they didn’t have, and then somehow managed to “toss” their guns in-between the time the cops were called and they showed up–even though the cops were called when everyone was inside and Shepp was outside, so Shepp would not know how much time they had to “toss” guns. Also, the source happened to know what was going on both inside and outside of the house at the same time, which is nigh impossible. That is one really crappy source Parry has.
The article does address the elder abuse allegations, but instead of fingering Morgan, it points the finger at his nemesis, Max Anderson.
Speaking of Max Anderson, back in that Hollywood Reporter article in April, Anderson accused Morgan of leaking Anderson’s criminal record to the press and planting stories about Anderson’s skills as a tour manager in relation to claims of sexual harassment aimed at Lee.
The first evidence of Anderson’s criminal record appearing in the press also came from a Daily Mail article from January 9th, also written by their “West Coast Correspondent” Ryan Parry. It was a piece on accusation that Lee groped nurses in his employ. Anderson’s criminal history is quoted from his police record and also “sources” claim that that Anderson intimidated the nursed into silence and was present when the abuses happened and did nothing to stop it.
Anderson’s poor managerial skills were also criticized on January 11, once again by the Daily Mail, once again in an article written by “West Coast Correspondent” Ryan Parry. Another “source” told Parry that Anderson arranged for a masseuse for Lee while they were in Chicago for the C2E2 comic con in April of 2017. The source then says that Lee started groping the masseuse, expecting sex from her and when she refused, Lee masturbated in front of her during the massage.
The April Hollywood Reporter article also talks to Linda Sanchez, a nurse for Lee who said she was threatened by Morgan that if she ever spoke about the elder abuse she had seen in the Lee household, that he would let the media know about her prior DUI and misdemeanor hit-and-run charge. Eight days after Sanchez completed a February 20th declaration at Tom Lallas’ office describing the abuses she has seen at Lee’s house, she was fired and a story about her firing appeared on, say it with me, the Daily Mail website in an article written by, you guessed it, their “West Coast Correspondent” Ryan Parry.
Yes, the article did mention her prior vehicular legal problems, but it also dredged up a complaint filed against her with Adult Protective Services which said she would get into the showers naked with Lee and masturbate him after she was done washing them. A “source” said that Sanchez and Lee were often heard giggling behind a locked bedroom door. The source also said Sanchez became close to Anderson as well, and the two conspired to “influence” Lee. The article stands as a fairly brutal character assassination of Sanchez.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that all these Daily Mail articles that were written by their “West Coast Correspondent” Ryan Parry seemed to benefit Keya Morgan in one way or another. Just like I’m sure that the Daily Mail articles on Morgan’s arrest and the protection order were written by other writers was just a coincidence too. I’m sure they would have been written by their “West Coast Correspondent” Ryan Parry, only his “source” was probably tied up with some kind of emergency and had no inside info to give him.
Morgan was arrested and released on $20,000 bail. The request to make the temporary restraining order against Morgan a permanent one will be decided on July 6th. Lallas is now acting as guardian ad litem for Lee.
Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld said that he has been in touch with a friend of his who is close to Lee. The friend says that Lee insists that he does not want to do any more conventions, so we got what we wanted back in April. But lets hope that Lee finally finds someone to look out for him that will put his needs above their own, so he can enjoy whatever years he has left in peace and comfort.
