Jonathan Cain has issued a statement in response to the lawsuit filed against him by fellow Journey bandmate Neal Schon.
The lawsuit in question centers around an American Express credit card that Schon alleges he has no access to, but Cain does. The card reportedly belongs to Nomota, the LLC Journey uses for its business dealings. Schon alleges Cain has been in control of the credit card. Despite requests for access to the credit card and its records, Schon has been denied.
In a statement to the press, Cain says, “This is a matter that should have been resolved privately, but I am forced to publicly respond now to Neal’s malicious lies and personal attacks on my family and I in an effort to garner public support for his ill-conceived lawsuit — a lawsuit that has absolutely no merit.”
Cain continues, “Neal has always had access to the credit card statements; what he lacks — and what he is really seeking — is the ability to increase his spending limits. Since Neal decided to publicize what is going on, I can tell you we will present the evidence to the court that shows that Neal has been under tremendous financial pressure as a result of his excessive spending and extravagant lifestyle, which led to him running up enormous personal charges on the band’s credit card account When efforts were made to limit his use of the card to legitimate band expenses, Neal unfortunately decided to attack me rather than trying to get his reckless spending under control.”
Cain concluded, “I am saddened by the situation — for Neal and for our fans — but since Neal filed a lawsuit, I suspect he will not be able to ignore the court like he has ignored the countless financial advisors and accountants he has fired over the past several years who have tried in vain to help him.”
Alan Gutman, who is Cain’s attorney, said in his own statement, “The evidence will establish that Schon’s financial crisis has nothing to do with his professed ‘unfettered access to Nomota’s records.’ Our investigation has established that Schon’s personal financial problems resulted solely from his reckless spending, including what preliminarily appears to be charging more than $1 million of improper personal expenses on the band’s corporate Nomota AMEX card.”
Gutman added, “Schon’s complaint is the classic example of desperate people doing desperate things. It’s very unfortunate that Neal — and Neal alone — has created such difficulties for himself and his family through his profligate spending.”
Schon previously shared his own statement about the lawsuit saying, “The only comment I’ll make at this time is it’s all very unfortunate and [I] tried for over a year to attain all our corporate records for Nomota with many personal e-mails to Jon, as well as many legal letters stating it’s my legal right to see all, but I was left with no choice but to take it legal.”
He added, “There’s much more … since I filed, I’ll be following my attorney’s advice and not speak until we are in court where I’ll not have a problem at all. It is what it is.”