fake - Lee Goldberg

Fake TV Writer James Strauss and his Advisors

February 15, 2023April 28, 2014 by Lee Goldberg

Just when you thought the story of fake TV writer and convicted conman James Strauss aka James R. Straus couldn’t get any stranger or sleazier…it does. My relentless and intrepid Facebook friends, including Barbara Early and a few who wish to remain anonymous, have uncovered more disturbing stuff about Strauss. Follow along. Strauss has a company called “Antares Research and Development” that is, according to its webpage, involved in:

“Silver Mining, Indian Jewelry, Fabrication & Sales, Computer Hardware Assembly, Documentary Film Production, Literary Works for Hollywood & New York, Consulting for the United States Government in the areas of Diplomacy, Finance, & Cultural Accommodation Abroad.”

Strauss has a board of “Advisory Directors” for his company. They are:

Advisory Directors

USA, EUROPE, ASIA, AMERICAS, & OTHER AREAS

1. James Strauss, Author

Antares Productions, Inc.

2. Frank Samuelson, Washington State

Antares Productions, Inc.

3. MR. X [Name Redacted]*, California

Ask, Seek, Knock, Inc.

4. Jeremy Rosetta, New Mexico

Raincloud Silver

5. MOVIE PRODUCER [Name Redacted] *, California

Movie Production Company [Name Redacted]*

6. Chuck Bartok, California

Focus Society Mastermind, Inc.

7. Barry Johnson, Texas

Colonel, United States Army

Here’s where it gets really interesting

MR. X [Name Redacted] was convicted in the late 90s for conspiracy, money laundering, and a host of other charges. On Mr. X’s resume on IMdB, he claims a close association with “Movie Producer’s Movie Production Company” [Name Redacted]. A Mr. X was imprisoned in the same Federal pen as Strauss at the same time. Coincidence? You be the judge.

Speaking of coincidences, let’s talk about Jeremy Rosetta, another one of Strauss’ top advisors. He’s based in New Mexico, where Strauss once lived and was arrested back in the 1990s for fraud. There’s a picture of him here. On his website, Rosetta says “I create my work in a jeweler’s shop on the Santo Domingo Indian Reservation.” Oddly enough, that’s also where convicted sex offender Jeremy James Rosetta lives. He was arrested for “Criminal Sexual Penetration” and “Aggravated Sexual Abuse.” You can see a picture of him here. Same guy? You tell me. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.

So if you’re a world leader or an aspiring author who needs to negotiate an international trade agreement, or get a movie made, or have your printer set up, or you’d just like some really cool jewelry, you’ll want to go to Antares Research & Development and their crack team of convicted conmen and registered sex offenders will be glad to take care of you.*

(*hat-tip to Kelley Elder for letting me steal some of his lines)

*I’ve redacted the name of the movie producer and his production company at the producer’s request. He fears that associating his name with Strauss will damage his reputation and I certainly can’t argue with that.

*I’ve redacted the name of Mr. X, at the request of the movie producer mentioned above, who claims they’ve lost “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in financing as a result of being associated with Strauss, who included their names in his other scam business ventures without their knowledge or consent. Since Mr. X and the producer have cut all their ties with Strauss, I agreed to their request. 11/3/16

UPDATE FEB 15, 2023

A reader alerted me that he’s at it again. Take a look at this 2022 order from the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Financial Institutions… it speaks for itself.

UPDATE JAN 28. 2015
Fake TV writer and convicted conman James Strauss is back…this time expressing on Facebook his happiness that his author page is finally creeping up to top of Google search results for his name as opposed to all the posts on the web about his swindles. What amuses me about this bizarre post is how he casts himself as a victim…as opposed to the many people that he deceived and defrauded.

Is James Strauss a Fake Anthropology Professor, too?

April 25, 2014 by Lee Goldberg

The fake TV writer and convicted conman James Strauss aka James R. Straus claims in his biography that he’s also a professor of anthropology. So far, I haven’t been able to find any evidence to support that claim. However, I have found this interesting nugget, published on his blog… a chapter from his novel-in-progress, in which the hero pretends to be an anthropology professor but gains confidence from the fact that suckers have paid thousands of dollars to hear him speak. Perhaps James is following that old adage: write what you know.

The Lido deck was filled with passengers lounging. Most took note of me when I walked by, but no one said anything. I behaved as I imagined a real anthropology lecturer and guide would. I wandered casually over to the bar. My corner spot was open, so I took it. Wedged in, I waited. A few moments later, Marlys rounded the corner from the storeroom behind the bar, carrying some liquor bottles. As always, she was stunning. White blouse, tied above the top of her black trousers. Her midriff was bare. It was a wonderful midriff. I checked the mirror, and found her reflection. I was unaccountably relieved. She poured a cup of coffee, and then came over to the corner where I sat. The cup was not a cup. It was one of those tall glass things. The way I glanced at it caused her to comment.

“You don’t like it?” she said in her dusky mysterious voice. The tinge of Dutch (or was it Surinamese?) was not irritating. It was alluring. I didn’t answer her, not wanting to say something stupid.

We have others cups,” she volunteered, seeming to know that the tall, vaguely feminine glass bothered me. “What do you normally drink your coffee from?” I searched for something profound to say. Anything.

“Ah, I drink my coffee from thick ceramic bowls, usually, when I can find them. It’s an old Navy thing.” I blushed. I could not believe what had come out of my mouth. She stood square and straight, and then looked directly into my face.

“Were you in the Navy?’ she inquired, waiting.

“Ah, no,” I answered, truthfully…. and stupidly. She just continued standing there, looking at the biggest idiot aboard the ship.

“I want to talk to you,” she stated, after a moment of silent staring.

“Yes, I know,” I began, reaching into my pocket for the anklet.

“No,” she said, her voice nearly a soft hiss. She extended one hand out toward me. “I’ll come to you.”

“But your anklet,” I tried again. She stopped me.

“The anklet is to hold you,” she explained, offhandedly, like it was something I might be expected to hear anywhere or anytime from anyone. She moved back toward the storeroom, while I admired the departing curve of her backside, the material covering it not tight, just warmly snug. Such quality, I thought, as I was left to consider what she might have meant by her comment. Maybe it was a language thing, I guessed. I fingered the anklet inside my pocket. Marlys reappeared, briskly walked the length of the bar, and grabbed my coffee glass. She poured its contents into a cream colored ceramic bowl. She walked away with neither look nor word. I stared into my swirling coffee.

“Great,” I chastised myself. I was doomed to spend the remainder of my time aboard drinking coffee like “Cochon,” the Navy veteran from the Golden Nugget in Nome. I was a Marine. There was some kind of reverse violation of code there, but I was not going to invest any more time thinking about it.

Don joined me at the bar. His great bulk was a comfort to have next to me.

“What are you going to say to the passengers?” he asked, innocently. I shrugged. We hadn’t seen anybody that entire day. Outside of the Russian fishermen, that is. We never did catch sight of any Russian Commandos. We weren’t even dead certain they’d been there. What could I report on since no anthropology had occurred? Other staff crew members gathered near the bar. Benito soon appeared, set up the pedestal microphone, and then lined up a row of chairs in a semi-circle behind the device. She motioned for all of us staff, sitting around, to occupy the chairs.

I left my bowl of coffee on the bar. My place was at the end of the row, with Don beside me. I looked behind him. High up on the bulkhead I spotted something that hadn’t been there before. I peered at the small insignia with squinted eyes. My eyebrows shot up, as I recognized the small drawing. It was the head of Mickey Mouse. I prodded Don. I motioned toward the small effigy, but he would not turn to look. He just chortled quietly.

“Your Mouseketeers are here,” he whispered. My stomach felt strange, looking again at Mickey, high up on the wall. The mission was still way up ahead of me, but the whole world around me was spinning out of control. It wasn’t just loss of control, I realized. It was worse than that. I had also lost the ability to comprehend what was spinning.

Everyone took his or her turn at the microphone. I was last. Benito introduced me. I got up and walked to stand behind the raised instrument. Benito passed behind me. She flagrantly moved her hand across my butt as she passed. To my credit, I did not jump, but I did look behind me into Don’s eyes. His face was screwed up and contorted, but he hadn’t let out a sound. The crowd of almost a hundred people had all had paid over twenty thousand dollars each to spend ten days with us. Somehow that reassured me.

“I’m Professor…” I began, but that was it. They applauded. Then they rose up and clapped some more. I was dumbfounded. I just stood there, like a mummy, until the din eventually quieted. I turned to Don, beseeching him for help. He leaned forward.

“Just tell them, you know, the story of what happened on the island,” Don suggested. “After all, it’s the big adventure of their cruise,” he finished. I thought for a brief moment, inhaled deeply, and then began to lie.

James Strauss and his Fake Writing Credits

January 28, 2015April 23, 2014 by Lee Goldberg

A year ago, I published a blog post here titled “Easily Fooled” about being on a TV writing panel at a mystery conference with a guy whose writing credits were all fake. I omitted his name to save him embarrassment. I was being too kind, because the guy is still hoodwinking conferences and the paying attendees with the same scam. So here’s the post again… with his name included this time.

James Strauss

James gets gigs teaching screenwriting courses based on his experience writing episodes on the TV shows HOUSE, DEADWOOD, SAVING GRACE and ENTOURAGE. The problem is, according to the Writers Guild of America and writer/producers on those shows, James Strauss never worked as a writer on any of those series. So beware. If you run across any conference or seminar programs where he’s fraudulently claiming those credits in his biography, please alert the organizers and have them contact Lesley McCambridge in the WGA West credits department. Okay, so here’s the April 2013 post that tells how I first encountered this fake, James Strauss:

The First Clue: Strauss Didn’t Know What He Was Talking About

Recently, I was a guest at a Love is Murder Conference in Chicago and one of my fellow speakers/panelists was James Strauss, who claimed to have written for scores of acclaimed network TV shows, like House, Deadwood, and Entourage, and a big upcoming movie, The Equalizer. Based on his experience, he’d been invited to speak at writer’s conferences, seminars, and libraries from coast to coast, including some nice paid gigs in Hawaii and Mexico. I’d never heard of him…and the instant I met him, I knew something was off.

For one thing, I knew one of the writers of the big, upcoming movie he claimed to have worked on…and I knew writer/producers on most of the shows he said he wrote for…and when I mentioned their names to James, he was evasive or said he came on the various projects before or after my friends were there. I might have bought that, screenwriting is a pretty nomadic business, but everything he said on his panels and in his talks about writing scripts and working on episodic series wasn’t just wrong, it was inane. Even in our personal conversations, he said some pretty stupid stuff about the business.

The Second Clue: Strauss Had No Credits. Anywhere. For Anything.

So I looked James Strauss up on IMDb. No credits. I googled his name, with the titles of the series he said he worked on, to see what came up… and the results I got all came from his website and the conferences he’d spoken at. Now my B.S. meter was in the red zone.

So I contacted my friends on the shows that he said he worked on. Not one of them had ever heard of him.

So I called the Writers Guild of America’s credits department and asked for his credits. They told me he wasn’t a member and had no writing credits.

Clearly, James Strauss was fraud. And not a very sophisticated one either if a mere google search could unmask him.

Now that the Guild was alerted to the guy, they investigated the issue in more depth, and sent him a strong cease-and-desist letter.

James Strauss claims to have written episodes of DEADWOOD. He didn't. — James Strauss claims to have written episodes of DEADWOOD. He didn’t.

Conferences Should Check Credentials of So-Called “Experts”

What I don’t get is how so many conferences, libraries, and seminars could have invited this guy to speak, and paid his way to tropical locales, without doing even the most basic check of his credentials. In this day and age, if a guy says he wrote for some of the most acclaimed shows on TV, you should be able to easily confirm it with a simple Google search. And if you can’t, that should be a big, fat, red freaking flag.

I alerted the conference organizers about this guy’s fraud, and they said they’d always suspected something was off about him, but he seemed very knowledgeable and was so likeable that they let it go. They won’t make that mistake again.

UPDATE 4-22-2014: They actually did! Love is Murder invited James Strauss back again this year to talk about TV writing …even after being alerted by me and the WGA that he was a fraud. But James wisely was a last-minute no-show. The WGA sent him another cease-and-desist letter, and copied the conference. There’s nothing wrong with him teaching screenwriting. What is wrong is claiming credits and experience that he doesn’t have.

Incredibly, James Strauss is still at it, claiming credits he doesn’t have. Yesterday, I discovered another conference that he was scheduled to speak at in May as an expert in TV writing. His bio listed the usual falsehoods. So I alerted the organizers about his fake credits and put them in touch with the WGA. The conference immediately disinvited Strauss. It’s discovering his continued fraud that prompted me to rewrite and repost this blog today.

When he’s asked to validate his writing credits, he claims he can’t because he wrote his scripts “under the table” and “off the books” so David Shore, David Milch, and the other producers he worked for could avoid paying WGA rates for writers. Uh-huh. That tells you how little James Strauss knows about the TV biz…or about the people he claims to have worked with. HOUSE creator/EP David Shore is on the Board of the Writers Guild of America and chairs the New Members committee.

James Strauss is not a clever fake. The problem is that the conference organizers he meets are so well-meaning, gullible and desperate for impressive guest speakers.

Here’s what James Strauss is saying today on his Facebook page about me outing his fakery:

“Ah, this day closes. I am under attack. For being what I am not supposed to be. For saying what I am not supposed to say. For attempting to live through the mythology of our phenomenal existence with little or no respect into a reality of hard truth and unacceptable demonstration of how things are. Just another day. Not so. A tough day and one not necessarily supported by those living in comfort and removed from the harshness of cold real world delivery. And so I bid you all a good night. I hope your day was better than mine but mine, even such as it was, wasn’t so bad as others have it. For them….I wish them love and acceptance. I wish them belief and tolerance. I wish them everything….”

UPDATE 4-24-2014 – James Strauss is a convicted conman.