FlyGuyCrew.Com, NYC's Friend or Foe?

Read about how Mr. Bernard "Romeo" Muminovic, CEO/President of FlyGuyCrew.com, a huge online community, lied, tricked, and manipulated a teenage web developer.

Approximately 7 months ago (November 2002), I, Dan Khasis, 16 years of age, began working on a website for an individual by the name of Bernard Romeo" Muminovic. The websites domain name (URL) is www.flyguycrew.com."; Our initial
"verbal" agreement was that he will pay me $1,500 (US), upon functionality of the website. The website was officially launched 3 -- 4 months ago, and has been functioning flawlessly ever since. I spent hundreds of hours working on the website, with no pay.

The website is created and designed by me, which includes the entire database design, the source code (ASP, SQL), where not noted from another source. I have printed the entire websites source code out on paper, and have also included a copy on CD-ROM. I also have a copy of the website mailed to myself in a USPS Priority Package, which is sealed. To have access to this type of information, Mr. Muminovic would have had to have given me full access to his servers, which he did. The servers and network was setup by me as well.

Mr. Muminovic insisted to me that I keep working on the website until he can come up with the money. I called him on a regular basis for months asking for the payment, or for partial payment. However, my requests were blatantly ignored and not taken seriously in the least bit.

Mr. Muminovic has been using my software (source code/database structure/design) for the past 7 months, and has in fact gotten paid by advertisers for providing them with ad space on his website. The advertising system on the site was written by me as well. Roughly 3 weeks ago I decided to contact a lawyer to see if he could help me settle the debt, but his attempt was short lived.

As the proprietary software writer, who has not yet been paid a penny for his services, I am requesting that to disallow Mr. Muminovic use of my source code on his website, which he in the future may or may not make money off of. The site since my arrival has more than doubled in member count, and has moved up in internet ranking from 48,000 to under 22,0000, under the internet ranking system provided by alexa.com." This ranking is from a collection of over 1 billion websites.    

The website flyguycrew.com" existed and functioned before I was hired to do the new site, however, the new site contains no traces, source code, or images from the old website, which may belong to Mr. Muminovic. At the time of my agreement with Mr. Muminovic, www.flyguycrew.com", was not yet a corporation, as he got incorporated only recently.

Once again, I would like to reiterate the fact that Mr. Muminovic has in essence stolen from me something that I have created, without any written consent from me. My lawyer advised me to temporarily lock him out of the server, and to give him a payment ultimatum, after which to shut the site down. However, after this ultimatum was given, Mr. Muminovic arrived to the datacenter (where the servers are stored), and regained access to the server, and has taken full control of the site.

In conclusion, after filing a lawsuit at the Superior Court of New Jersey, my case was denied without prejudice.