DeStorm Power and Lemuel Plummer both left comments on Baller Alert’s Instagram post about the Zeus arbitration, and Plummer used his to argue that the cofounders are chasing a $9,826,837 award that would only go back to a company he owns and controls. What his comment leaves out is that the same award orders him to personally pay King Bach, Amanda Cerny and DeStorm $1.74 million for their attorneys’ fees, money that goes straight to them, not to Zeus.
The post covered Plummer’s six slide statement claiming the three cofounders walked away from the arbitration with $1 each. DeStorm commented first, posting a GIF of a man tucking himself into bed. Plummer left his own comment a short time later. “Paid DeStorm, Bach and Amanda $1 each. Now they want the court to uphold a $9,826,837 award payable to a company I own and control. Makes sense,” he wrote. Neither comment was a reply to the other.
The $1 comes from the arbitration award itself, and it is not $1 per person. The panel gave the three cofounders, jointly, three separate $1 awards called nominal damages. Nominal damages are a symbolic dollar a judge or arbitration panel awards when it finds someone broke an agreement, but the harm cannot be measured in money. The dollar is not meant to pay anyone back. It is the official finding that a rule was broken. Each of the three dollars was tied to a different violation of the Zeus operating agreement: one for Plummer’s failure to give the cofounders access to the company’s books and records, one for his failure to provide all of the quarterly financial statements owners are entitled to and one for his failure to file Zeus’ tax returns for several years. The panel found Lemuel Plummer acted in bad faith on all three. It ordered him to open the books, send the statements and file the returns, and made him personally responsible for any IRS fines or penalties tied to the unfiled taxes.
With the legal fees added, the award puts what Plummer owes the cofounders directly at $1,740,003. The $1.74 million covers about 75% of the roughly $2.32 million they spent on lawyers. He also has to cover 75% of what the arbitrators and the American Arbitration Association charged, and pay Zeus back for every dollar the company spent on lawyers to defend him. The damages carry 8.25% simple interest dating back to Oct. 13, 2022, the day the cofounders filed for arbitration. The petition the cofounders filed in Los Angeles puts the total at $13,779,781.25.
Plummer does control Zeus. He is the company’s CEO and manager, and the arbitration panel found he was the only person allowed to use the company debit card or sign its checks. He does not own most of it. Schedule A of the Zeus operating agreement, the contract that spells out who owns what, lists Lemuel Plummer at 42.67%. King Bach, Cerny and DeStorm each hold 16%, which gives the three of them 48% together. Shane Norman, Zeus’ chief technology officer, holds 4%, and the early investor BBK Investment Ventures holds 5.33%. In his statement, Plummer called himself the “majority stakeholder.” His 42.67% is the biggest single stake, but it is less than half of the company.
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That ownership split is why the cofounders want the $9,826,837 paid back into Zeus. Money returned to the company raises the value of every owner’s stake and adds to the cash that can be paid out to owners. Divided by ownership, the cofounders’ 48% lines up with about $4.7 million of that award, roughly $1.57 million for each 16% stake. Lemuel Plummer’s own 42.67% lines up with about $4.19 million, which means a large share of what he repays comes back to his own stake. The panel also ordered him to resume distributions, the profit payouts owners receive, which he cut off after 2021. The panel found that cutoff reflected a retaliatory motive.
The $9,826,837 that goes to Zeus is made up of seven items. The largest is $3,467,000 sent through PayPal, Cash App, Venmo, Apple Cash and Zelle with no paperwork to back it up. The panel also ordered him to repay $1,974,167 in cash withdrawals without receipts, $1,436,000 in salary above the $200,000 to $300,000 a year he told his partners he would take, $1,006,933 in reimbursements paid to himself, $770,222 paid to his company L Plummer Media, $547,515 in repayments on a loan with no documents and $625,000 he sent to COGIC Israel, a church led by his father.
Part of Plummer’s case did land. The cofounders accused him of misappropriating about $56 million, and the panel awarded roughly $9.8 million. It approved more than $10 million paid to a travel company, $2.75 million in private jets and $664,000 in 2024 Super Bowl tickets as business expenses. It also did not award the roughly $3.6 million in back distributions the cofounders asked for, about $1.2 million each, and instead ordered the payouts to resume going forward.
The cofounders filed their petition to confirm the award in Los Angeles Superior Court on Sept. 29, and the case is pending before Judge Rupert A. Byrdsong at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. The judge can confirm the award, correct it or vacate it, and Plummer has the right to oppose it. If it is confirmed, the cofounders can enforce it like any other court judgment.
