AG seeks LynnCAM payback

BOSTON – State Attorney General?s prosecutors will seek court action as early as April 2 to enforce their claim that former Lynn Community Access and Media, Inc. employees and current directors should pay back money to the cable access studio.AG Maura Healey filed a complaint Thursday in Suffolk Superior Court stating Karen Chapman, a former studio president and Lynn resident, received more than $14,800 in payroll checks “despite the fact that the (nonprofit?s) bylaws prohibited her from receiving compensation for her work there.”Her husband, John F. Chapman, was paid more than $30,000 by LynnCAM between 2012 and 2014, according to the complaint, although the complaint states he was not a studio employee.The AG?s office wants a judge to issue a preliminary injunction against the Chapmans and LynnCAM board of directors named in the complaint.John Chapman in a Thursday interview said he “did work” for LynnCAM and Karen Chapman said the studio had sufficient financial oversight over checks written against money provided to the studio by cable providers Comcast and Verizon.Their daughter, Althea Shea, is named in the complaint as the owner of companies that received payment in LynnCAM checks processed through a check cashing service.Shea, a former Lynn resident who now lives in Georgia, said she was paid by check for building studio sets over a several month period for LynnCAM in 2011.?Every check they gave me was a legitimate check. I did work,” she said.Shea insisted she has invoices for the work she did and does not know why she is named in the AG?s complaint.?I don?t know anything going on with internal workings there,” she said.The AG?s office, in a Friday statement, said John Chapman and current board of directors president Robert Sewell “…allegedly caused LynnCAM to issue numerous checks as payment for services that were never rendered, or to payees that did not exist, and they personally cashed those checks and retained the proceeds for their own personal use.”Attempts to reach Sewell on Thursday and Friday were unsuccessful, but Emmanuel Papanickolas, attorney for the LynnCAM board, on Friday called the complaint “based on misinformation.”The complaint states that the Chapmans and Sewell?s fellow board members Cynthia Demakes, Lawrence McCully and Almanzo Rodriguez should pay restitution to LynnCAM.