Richard Werth

Just starting to compile some highlights of various stories as I have time... (they have to be sorted, condensed, and checked against the person... time consuming work) -- want your story added? Clarify or rescind a testimonial? Please send me a short version -- no story too simple & positive stories really are welcome as well -- and we will discuss its inclusion here (I do want to make sure the stories are verifiable so I will be talking to you further). Please try to avoid writing personal insults to Richard as I will insist you do some editing for just plain rudeness. Just click and email here. Picture is definitely NOT required but is kind of a nice contrast to Richard's testimonials that feature initials "that may be changed to protect the identity" of the person giving the testimonial. Check it out... real live people here with faces and names.

EVE - Eve is from CA. She met Richard online. According to her she was engaged to Richard until the engagement was broken by her in later '07. Richard borrowed $18k from her during the summer citing his money and investments being inaccessible until Dec.. she didn't get a promissory note as he was her fiancee, but she did get a cashier's check that noted it as a loan so she maybe has a shot at getting that back some day. She also made the mistake of putting him on her credit cards where he ran up tens of thousands of dollars in bills and refuses to have financial responsibility for the bills despite having all the equipment he had purchased shipped to his home in Seattle. Additionally someone forged her name (very high likelihood on the basis of examination of an expert -- expert's name available) and gifted her Mercedes to Richard's business.

When she attempted to get her posessions back he tried to not so subtly pressure and stop her with threats of publication of some risque photos he had taken of her (this is a common thread for many victims), sending a forged "model release" reminder through a duped Tacoma attorney (another common thread.... not informing attorneys of the full situation -- in this case that the attorney was assisting with attempted extortion, and in other cases putting attorneys involved with him and not actually legally representing him in positions where they actually risk their jobs).

On December 14, 2007 she received three threatening phone calls from Richard. On December 15th, 2007 about 11pm her home was vandalized. Windows broken in the garage, house and car.Her son was in the livingroom when the crowbar was smashed through the window. -- as told to Saqra by Eve

[Saqra here. I was actually was CCd on an email from Eve to the Seattle police on the 14th at 5:11pm. She wanted me warned for my own safety since he had been saying the "hit man" things about me. She wrote:

I have to admit that whole thing surprised me. I hadn't pegged him for violent despite Trapper's broken glass and the restraining orders people kept wanting. But then again I only ever spoke to him live a few times. ~S]

[Added note 2/13/08 - I'm concerned about a possibly related violent incident. Read to the bottom of Trapper's Story]

TRAPPER - MEETING AND RECORDING: I met Richard Werth in 1990. After my group had performed at the NW Folklife Festival, I received a letter from Omega, signed by a Cameron Powers, wanting to record me. Only later did I find out that Cameron Powers was him, along with many other pseudonyms that he used to present himself as a larger business than he was. We became involved and he recorded two tapes of music for my band, St. Elmo's Choir. Not only were the bills inflated, to my mind, he also charged the backer of the project sales tax, despite Omega not being licensed to do business in the State of Washington until late 1999. According to the auditor I spoke with at the Department of Revenue in 2000, those taxes from 1992-3 were never paid. My musical partner, Evie gave Richard $5,000 to record our band, Coventry, in order to produce an album for sale. I threw in another $2,000 in work I had done for Richard. To date, we have never received either the recording or our money back. What makes this even more reprehensible is that the money was Evie's inheritance from her late mother's estate. This is despite an email that I have from him stating that I could have the masters any time. So far, all attempts to get our property back or a refund of all monies have been ignored.

REPAIRS: I handed him my Nikko amplifier to be repaired. After a month, I inquired after it and found that he had installed it in his studio. I took it back. It was never repaired. At the same time, I had a CD boombox that I also asked him to fix. When I asked about it, he said he'd sold it. I stopped recommending him to people when this happened and when I found out that he was selling the gifts my father had given him, such as an oscilloscope, boxes of rare jewel lights and old, hard to find radio tubes.

PASTORAL COUNSELING: My beloved friend, Steffan, passed away from AIDS in 1994, and left me to be executor of his estate and final wishes. Not only did Richard not volunteer at Bailey-Boushay during the time of Steffan's illness, he refused to visit him, because he was afraid that he would catch AIDS from him. Steffan died in my arms and the ONLY people that were there at the time were myself, Steffan's friend, Duane, and Cliff, a caregiver. Richard had no part of planning or executing the memorial that I had for Steffan. When my brother passed away in 1995, we went to the hospital to be with him and pull the ventilator that was keeping him alive. At this point, Richard wanted to leave. I insisted we stay with my parents until Don's heart stopped beating. I wrote the entire service for the memorial. When my cousin, Gloria, passed away in 1997, I could only get Richard to come to the hospital once to see her, and he made a fuss every time I went up to Canada with my parents to see her at the hospital. When she passed, her daughters wrote her entire memorial service. Richard was asked to read the words that we had already written at both memorials, the same way that any actor would. At no time did he act in the capacity of a minister, and at no time did he act as a pastoral counselor as I see that he claims. In fact, on the way to my cousin's memorial, he had a screaming tantrum in the car because I, in my extreme grief, had missed a turn and had to refer to the map to get to the cemetery. He insisted on borrowing an old clerical stole with crosses on the ends that belonged to Steffan. He has never returned it.

ENDING: I finally ended the relationship when I could no longer ignore his unfaithfulness, his lack of ethics as regarded my business transactions with him and his many, badly hidden girlfriends. He began sending me reams of emails, cards, letters, all stating that I didn't have the right to unilaterally end the relationship. He harassed my parents and my friends. He left broken glass on my porch and would sit outside my house in his van, follow me to the store and then proceed to scream at me all the way back home. He harassed me until I filed for an emergency restraining order. When I went to court to get it extended, he was willing to lie in a sworn statement that we had never had a relationship, in order to get out of the restraining order. His family was willing to lie for him in their sworn statements as well, stating that our families were friends. My parents have never met his sisters, and met his mother only once. My parents despise Richard at this point, for exploiting our family and the tragedies that we have had, for his personal gain and gratification. Between money, artwork and books never returned, he's cost me about $10,000. It was a very expensive lesson. -- Trapper's description

HASANI - I had the misfortune to be associated with Mr. Werth from about 1997 to 1999. He said he had a huge, state-of-the-art recording studio with 55 employees and all kinds of prestigious accolades. He didn't. All the "employees" (Margaret Beaumont, Cameron Powers, Michael Valentine, the whole "legal department", just to name a few) turned out to be him role-playing all by himself. [Saqra adds: I have correspondence from these alias names in my files.] The "award-winning studio" turned out to be just some ordinary video equipment and his kitchen table.

Richard bartered the use of his sound system for a vending spot at my dance events. Richard would "accidentally" videotape dancers, "gift" them with the tape, and then demand their phone numbers and contact information on a release form he would then produce. For such a self-proclaimed professional, there was a lot of "accidental" videotaping going on. [Saqra again -- this is how he initially contacted me. ]

What is most disturbing to me is that during the 2 or so years we were buddies, he used these fake employees and false pretenses to get women's phone numbers and addresses from me. He would claim his boss had a project going with Dancer So-and-So, he couldn't access the company address book because the secretary was out, and he needed to contact her right away before some project deadline....all the while insisting he was a celibate former Buddhist monk, ordained by the Dalai Lama himself.

When I reached the point where I no longer wanted to deal with him, I was bombarded with email and phone calls from Richard, from "lawyers" (who, curiously, would not say they actually represented Richard), and even his mother trying to force me to meet him somewhere, without my husband or my attorney, to "settle" this. He wanted to compel me to continue the barter arrangement through "arbitration". He contacted my friends, pressuring them to convince me to meet him somewhere. When I refused, he threatened that "someone" would make a false report to CPS about me.

We hired a lawyer, who determined that Omega Organization was being run as a fraudulent business entity. Richard/Omega had no business license and had never registered with the Washington Department of Revenue, even though Richard had been collecting sales tax. Because of the fraud, I was able to have my lawyer void all contracts and releases I had signed for him. Hasani's description

[Saqra here: JoAnne successfully sued Richard. It took 7 years from start to finish before she received her judgment because of his delay tactics, but her case does prove it can be done. She had a remarkable business lawyer. My own lawyer had told me not to pursue my case because Richard was a nut and likely to harass or stalk.... that seems to be a common opinion with lawyers of the victims, so people rarely really stick with pursuing justice. Had I known the number of victims out there I would have stuck. I regret that.]

TEMPORARILY ANONYMOUS RECORDING ARTIST - [Saqra: This was told to me by the artist in mid Jan '08. This artist is still thinking they have a shot through the legal system, so I am just going to tell a story about someone anonymous here pending their outcome, then I'll try and get an official statement. This has actually happened to several artists that I am aware of prior to this, but I hesitated to put up any stories when I didn't know amounts of investment and things.... people don't want to talk because they are embarrassed they may have signed something wothout understanding the impact. So here we go... this is all "allegedly."

Richard may have recorded a CD for an artist in 2002. They may have paid 17K for that privilege. Copyright may have been filed in 2004 by Richard Vanceunebrouck-Werth as composer, arranger, and producer without telling (reminding?) the artist that would be the case.

The artist can't get a copy of their contract from Richard (who ignores their attempt to contact) so they don't know if that was actually in the contract and they didn't realize it. But regardless the artist has no product, no 17K, and may not even have the rights to their work now.]

Saqra writing: Someone, I would assume Richard Carl "Vanceunebrouck" "RVW" Werth director of World Meditation Ensemble and self-proclaimed music producer, has photoshopped her name off the cover of their collaborative tape "Affinity." See http://www.richardvwerth.com/ for the photoshopped version. The original (which I have been given by a purchaser of the original tape) says "RICHARD V.-WERTH on the left top, then a round bullet, then SHEILA CHATELAINE at the right top where a blank spot now resides on the version on Richard "Vanceunebrouck" Werth's pages. Everything co-written, performances listed as being by "AFFINITY" and Affinity described as being Richard and Sheila together. She has been Photoshopped off..... watch out World Meditation Ensemble folks hoping for some kind of fame.... or even credit, eh?

Of 9 selections, Sheila composed 4, Dick composed 3, and the remaining two were Dick's re-hash of someone else's work. The NAMA award went to the "New Age Band, Affinity", not to Dick, and Sheila was the primary composer for Affinity. On his website, Dick refers to the Affinity project as his alone. It's not.

AFTER Dick sold someone the Affinity tape, he fessed up that he really didn't have the right to sell her one at all "because Sheila wouldn't consent to further sales," and he blamed [the non-existant] "Margaret" for "accidentally" selling it to her. The purchaser was charged sales tax on the sale ... and Richard "Vanceunebrouck" Werth and Omega Organization International didn't have any business license.

My wife is a bellydancer, and in 2004, I organized a group of drummers called Raks Rafiki to perform live music for bellydancers. The format was designed for beginning drummers, and it proved to be a big success with both drummers and dancers over the four years that I kept it running.

Within the first six months, "Richard Wright" joined the troupe. He told us 1) he had been drumming for about 30 years, 2) he had been a professional drummer, 3) he had been a drumming teacher, 4) he was a music producer, 5) he was an ordained minister. To our untrained eyes, he did appear to be a good drummer. An expert drummer later told me that in truth, Richard was clearly just a beginner at drumming.

Richard exuded confidence, and his voice had the silky quality of a radio disk jockey. He was a joy to listen to, and he said things that you wanted to hear. It was easy to be swept up. He was good at telling different stories to different people, and keeping them straight.

Richard disrupted the group. His methods were very subtle, and in some cases, it took me a little while after the dust settled to realize just what he had done. Just trying to describe each attack in brief fashion is challenging.

He tried to take control of the group. He told me he did not intend to donate his time for much longer, and he expected that he would get paid for the great expertise he offered to us. He also tried to get us to let him use a microphone at performances, so that he could then become the star performer with the rest of the troupe merely as backup. He set himself above the rules that applied to everyone else. For example, he refused to wear the outfit that everyone else was wearing: matching black vest and headpiece.

Richard organized secret extra practice times for a few select drummers who thought he was awesome, but Richard made sure that no one would tell me. He used those secret practices to advance his own agenda for taking over the group.

Richard poisoned the group energy. We had been one big happy family, but when Richard got started, we were divided into different camps that either disliked Richard or saw him as the savior of the group. Several drummers quit because they didn’t like the sudden onset of “heavy politics” swirling around Richard.

Richard disrupted a live performance at Folklife Festival, and caused one drummer to get so upset that he quit the troupe in mid performance. That drummer later called me to apologize and to say he didn’t understand why he felt compelled to act in such an uncharacteristic manner.

The drummers were mostly men, but our target audience was women. When we played for the bellydancers, Richard was not very subtle in the way he hit on the most attractive dancer in the room. That angered many of the drummers, who felt he was only using the troupe as a way to go after cute, young bellydancers.

[Saqra: When his alias was exposed we discovered he had hit on one of my own students who was participating.]

After six weeks, I could take no more and I asked Richard to leave the troupe. Richard responded with lengthy email attacks sent to all the other drummers in the troupe.

After Richard left, I discovered he had a long history of doing bad things, and I found that every experienced bellydance teacher already knew a lot more about him than I did. I felt embarrassed to have fallen to his game, but they universally commended me for reacting as quickly as I did to kick him out. I spoke to several of his victims, and learned of many, many others he had victimized. I felt compelled to spread a warning.

I mentioned his name on the listserv for the local drummer community, and he launched an attack. The first email sent to me was cleverly designed to look as though it had been posted publicly to the whole group of drummers. It said some very negative things about me, and it was shocking to think that all of those nasty things had been said in public. That email was soon followed by a second email, pointing out that it had not actually been published and warning me that it was an example of what would be published if I didn’t behave. The listserv tracked down the email, and found it had been registered only the day before on Hotmail, so it was untraceable, but the listserv started a new policy to prevent such attacks in the future.

A month or two later, I was thinking about putting up posters at Medfest [Saqra: "Medfest" is a large annual Seattle belly dance festival - Mediterranean Fantasy Festival] with his photo and his many alias names . I mentioned that plan to only one person, who was obviously a mole for Richard. The next day, I received a threatening voice mail from Richard, warning me not to put up the posters.

I later discovered he was planning a business arrangement with an artist who I know as one of the moms at my child’s school. I warned her about all the past stories I had heard from other victims, and at first, she was very skeptical of my story. Several months later, I saw her again at a school function and she told me she was very grateful for the warning, as Richard had turned out to be exactly as I had described him.

I found that most people were very reluctant to believe that such a person could actually exist, even when I showed them solid evidence. Rather, they wanted to shoot the messenger. I think this must be a basic human reaction, and Richard is very adept at using it to his advantage. For example, I found a few drummers on the drummer listserv who suddenly seemed to hate me, and often, they were people I had never even met. That did not happen with the bellydance community, since his reputation was simply too widespread and well known.

If a victim remains quiet, then he is free to find an endless stream of new victims. But if we dare to warn others, then he convinces people that the messengers must be the bad guys for saying such terrible things about him. His victims are therefore put into a very uncomfortable ethical dilemma, and while we struggle deciding what to do, he is already busy digging deeply into the next target.

Thank you Saqra for all your courage. [Saqra: Thank you for your story, Michael. I know this was actually a much worse situation than it reads here. It is impossible to communicate the fear and frustration that happens in the situation I know you experienced. Anyone reading this... the closest I can come to describing the feeling is if you are a homeowner with neighbor kids that break and enter and play with matches... and they specifically don't like YOU. Crazy stuff.]

To the best of my knowledge, there has been no formal or informal affiliation between the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Richard Carl Werth (or any of the aliases mentioned below), or the World Meditation Ensemble. I have never heard of this person nor this organization.

We do have a Seattle chapter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship -- in addition to Eric Higbee, to whom you have sent the email below, I am cc'ing some of the other leaders of that chapter in case they have any further information to give you. Otherwise please note in your information that the Buddhist Peace Fellowship has not worked with this person nor do we endorse his work.

thank you for your inquiry,

Maia Duerr

Communications and Outreach Director

Turning Wheel Editor

Buddhist Peace Fellowship