Curt Schilling Slams Governor Chafee on Twitter
Monday, August 20, 2012
Former Red Sox star Curt Schilling took to Twitter over the weekend to criticize Governor Lincoln Chafee over the demise of his video game company, which filed for bankruptcy less than two years after the state signed off on a $75 million loan guarantee.
When all is said and done with the 38 Studios saga, some have estimated the state could end up on the hook for over $100 million, but Schilling says it will be Chafee’s fault if taxpayers end up footing the bill.
“If the state loses money it's because the Governor is a dunce of epic proportions, nothing I can do about that,” Schilling said in an exchange with another Twitter user Saturday evening.
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Schilling’s company had less than $22 million in assets and owed more than $150 million to over 1,000 mostly-unsecured creditors when it filed for bankruptcy in June. The state of Rhode Island is the largest secured creditor at $115.9 million.
After the company filed for bankruptcy in Delaware, a federal judge moved the case to Rhode Island and Richard J. Land was appointed the receiver.
This wasn’t the first time Schilling has ripped Chafee since the company’s financial problems were made public. Schilling has blamed the Governor for scaring away potential investors and suggested that politics got in the way of saving the company.
"I think he had an agenda and executed it,” Schilling said of Chafee in a June interview with WEEI.
Schilling’s biggest criticism has been that Chafee told reporters that the state was looking to keep the company solvent in May, several weeks after it defaulted on a $1.125 million payment due to the Economic Development Corporation. But Chafee has he doesn’t believe his comments were the reason 38 Studios couldn’t find investors.
“I don’t believe [my comments] scared away investors,” Chafee said in May. “An investor is not going to be scared away by some Governor’s comments.”
Dan McGowan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @danmcgowan.
