When we first checked in on Robin Grearson’s project to try to tally up the debt that 3rd Ward owed teachers and students and members, she had guesstimated that the total would come out to somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000. Well, if you were betting on it, you should have taken the over, because Grearson’s total is already up to $70,503. It’s a good thing we live in a society that quickly repays small debts, otherwise the indebted might never see their money!
Whoops, haha, of course they won’t actually be seeing it. Unless maybe a few of the teachers with outstanding invoices take 3rd Ward founder Jason Goodman on Judge Judy or Judge Joe Brown. On her blog, Grearson writes that just from 51 teachers alone from Philly and New York have told her they have outstanding invoices with the company, ranging from $100 to $6,000, totaling up $49,447. The rest of the debt comes from memberships and course fees that were never refunded after 3rd Ward’s sudden bankruptcy. Grearson also said that not a single teacher told her about a response of any kind from 3rd Ward CFO Nick Alexander.
Grearson also reports that she spoke to multiple sources who told her that Goodman moved company equipment off-site and sold it in all-cash deals. It jibes with what he’d told the Village Voice after 3rd Ward closed, that if a buyer couldn’t be found that the equipment would be sold off, but the sell-off was supposed to reimburse creditors like banks and former teachers and students. Still, given the fact that the banks were bigger creditors than the teachers and students, it was always a question as to whether ordinary people would see a dime after this.