A just-released financial audit revealing how Queen Mary operator Joe Prevratil used a shell game-style financial structure to enrich himself by nearly $8 million while driving Long Beach’s city icon into bankruptcy basically backs up and amplifies a story reported by The District Weekly last July.
Howard M. Ehrenberg, the court-appointed trustee for the Queen Mary during bankruptcy—who is currently opposing [...]

A very good and complete story in today’s Press-Telegram about the pending settlement of a lawsuit against former Queen Mary kingpin Joe Prevratil–except for the part where it didn’t mention that story it completed was broken on The District’s website Monday. That’s two days ago.
Perhaps this seems petty, but it’s longstanding journalistic practice for newspapers that are following up a breaking story to mention the [...]

The District has learned that Joseph Prevratil and Howard Bell, former kingpins of the Queen Mary who got rich while sinking Long Beach’s floating icon into bankruptcy, are expected to relinquish their million-dollar condo in Hawaii to settle a lawsuit filed against them in February by the Queen Mary’s bankruptcy trustee Howard Ehrenberg and the [...]

City Attorney Robert Shannon should not — repeat: NOT — have been included in the list of high-ranking Long Beach city officials who were accused of looking the other way for years while former Queen Mary chief Joe Prevratil refused to pay full rent on the ship. I mistakenly reported that in this week’s issue of The District, and [...]

The city sues longtime Queen Mary director Joseph Prevratil. Now we can wonder whether legal action will change Long Beach’s political culture of favoritism for insiders

PHOTO by DANIEL DE BOOM
Oldtimers still tell of the days when Joseph Prevratil roamed the 14th floor of City Hall—where City Council members have their offices—possessed of a confidence and [...]

New owners, almost all smiles
In case you haven’t been following along at home, here’s coverage of yesterday’s joint press conference by Save the Queen officials–the development consortium which bought the lease to operate the Queen Mary and 64 acres of surrounding land–and the City of Long Beach.

Save The Queen frontman Jeff Klein was caught off guard this morning when he learned that his development consortium has only three business days — until the end of the day Tuesday, November 6 — to finalize its $43 million bid to purchase the lease to operate the Queen Mary and develop 64 acres of [...]

The complicated sale of the lease to operate and develop the Queen Mary resumed its slow and unsteady progress toward closure Thursday morning in bankruptcy court when Judge Vincent Zurzulo approved an unusual $1.15 million settlement of a dispute lodged by small contracting company AAC Shoreline — after disgruntled development company, Bandero LLC, withdrew its [...]

A company that insists it has been defrauded of development rights to the Queen Mary and surrounding acreage will be in Los Angeles bankruptcy court this morning to try to put another obstacle in the path of final sale of the lease to that property.
Bandero LLC says it has invested more than $12 million into [...]

The Queen Mary’s bankruptcy trustee agreed today to pay AAC Shoreline $1.15 million to settle that company’s last-minute legal claim against former leaseholder QSDI, tentatively removing a stay by the ninth circuit court that had held up the final sale of the ship’s lease for more than a week, The District has learned.
“We’re pleased to [...]