VenturePharma Director is a convicted felon
Violent assault captured on video tape
Andrew Skylar Medal has raised money from wealthy investors in Southern California and the Midwest during the last three years while working at a Southern California company called VenturePharma. Medal, identified as a director and partner of VenturePharma, has also raised significant sums of money for two other companies, including Progenex Dairy Bioactives, and a so-called venture capital fund called Mercury Ventures.
Each of these companies is run by another convicted felon, Adam “Stuart” Zuckerman, who has pleaded guilty to a $20 million fraud.
Investors who gave large sums of monies to Medal and Zuckerman were never told that Medal is a violent felon currently on probation out of Nevada. Medal is categorized as a high-supervision offender by Nevada authorities due to the near-fatal beating of a Virginia man at the MGM casino in 2006.
In the video, Medal is shown beating James Hechtkopf, 32, to the brink of death at the Studio 54 Nightclub. Once Hechtkopf was beaten unconscious, Medal viciously stomped on the man’s head and then did a celebratory dance.
Hechtkopf said he was celebrating his wedding anniversary at the time of the assault. He suffered severe residual brain trauma and spent the next nine months in a brain rehabilitation facility. Mr. Hechtkopf said the attack was completely unprovoked, and it remains unclear to him as to why Medal attacked him.
“He attacked me from behind,” Mr. Hechtkopf said. “I'd never even spoken to him. I was sitting down with my back to the room, and he came and attacked me from behind where I was seated. He pummeled me in the back of the head...and then I went down, and he kicked me in the head.”
Hechtkopf said the attack left his life in chaos. He has lost much of his writing skills and his memory is poor. The aftermath of the assault has also caused strain in his family life as well.
Medal, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to a felony count of battery with substantial bodily harm and somehow was placed on five years probation instead of being sent to prison. He was ordered to pay more than $180,000 in restitution as part of his Las Vegas guilty plea but has, according to Hechtkopf, paid only a few hundred dollars to his victim. Medal still has a 90-month prison sentence hanging over his head, though, and, while on probation, has been linked to his participation in multiple deceptive business entities controlled by convicted felon Adam Stuart Zuckerman.
This is not Medal’s first violent felony. He was previously convicted of three counts of conspiracy and one count of possession of a firearm in Orange County, California.
Medal has been working at the direction of Zuckerman, a convicted felon currently at large on supervised release and awaiting sentencing for masterminding a $20+ million bank wire fraud known as “Operation Lease Fleece.” Medal’s violent criminal history and fraudulent credentials have been withheld from both VenturePharma and Progenex investors as well as the unsuspecting public, by his partners Ryan S. Page, of Ladera Ranch California, and Aaron Thomas, of Kansas City Missouri, and thus this video and press release are being distributed to the public to alert future potential fraud victims to Medal’s ongoing activities involving potentially deceptive business practices in finance and business credit through his entity Capital Partners Society as well as a myriad of other Zuckerman-controlled business entities operating out of 3197 B Airport Loop Drive in Costa Mesa California. Many of the wealthy investors were referred by a high ranking Republican whom Zuckerman and Medal claims is under their control. Another convicted felon named Kirk McMahon convicted with Zuckerman in 'Operation Lease Fleece' works with Medal and Zuckerman at the
the 3197B Airport Loop Drive address.
