What happens in a New Jersey court even confuses the night radio legend with the king of the Art Bell conspiracy.
In one corner is David Rubini, a skilled man in the air who speaks temporarily with a Texan touch, who presents himself as an ancient protégé of Bell and his disciple in the microphone of the radio.
Rubini’s enemy, Hoboken’s Michael Marshalek, is a fan of radio conspiracy turned into an anti-mask crusader. He recently faces charges for allegedly arresting his 5-year-old son in captivity in a police confrontation over COVID restrictions.
What’s at stake is a part of Bell’s legacy: a collection of the last members of the Radio Hall of Fame before his death in 2018. Rubini claims Marshalek invested in his online radio business and then stole Bell’s files. Your goal is to get them back.
Is this a dark conspiracy?Bell’s lifelong listeners might suspect him. From the murder of JFK and Area 51 to the Loch Ness monster, to ghosts and, any mystery, implausible, can seem believable in the midnight waves Bell has ruled for years.
Only this dispute is a conspiracy. It’s a test.
Less than a year ago, Rubini says, he ran Dark Matter Digital Network, Bell’s last radio company before his retirement in 2015. In court documents, Rubini declares himself the legitimate owner of the company, claiming that he agreed to purchase the network with Marshalek’s. But the deal failed, as Marshalek seized Bell’s corporate archives and the last hundred programs, according to demand.
Bell broadcasts from his desert home in Pahrump, Nevada, Rubini is in Dallas, but the war for Bell’s former corporation will take place in a Hudson County courtroom, where Marshalek lives and where Rubini pursues him.
Rubini’s claims: the company and its master records, plus $5 million in damages. That’s a higher figure, but if you ask Rubini, the legal challenge is that Bell’s legacy, in all its mad glory, remains in smart hands.
“I’m even here for the money, ” said Rubini. ” I just need to keep the tradition, the legacy. “
Marshalek did not respond to requests for comment. The case results in a position for a protracted battle: in court documents, Hoboken’s guy denies that the business has been stolen and that Rubini is the rightful owner.
Long before conspiracy theories infiltrated the margins of American culture into dominant politics, Bell. The Chicago Radio Hall of Fame honors him as a pioneer of night broadcasts and one of the few presenters to have won an audience across the country. ? A nightly regime of unconventional discussions about occultism, UFOs and everything paranormal.
“There’s a difference in what other people are willing to consider, the day as opposed to night,” Bell told The Washington Post in 1998. “It’s dark and you don’t know what’s out there. And as things are now, it would possibly be something.
Bell has been starting out as a pirate radio host for troops while serving as a doctor in Vietnam. After the war, he bounced back on radio stations around the world as a DJ and rock technician, landing at KDWN in Las Vegas. In 1989, he presented a nightly program committed to the paranormal.
In the last 1990s, his show “Coast-to-Coast AM” reached 15 million listeners on 500 stations. Howard Stern ran morning radio, but Bell was the prince of the night.
“He showed every single night he was interested in things in life that may not be explained,” said Radio Hall of Fame President Kraig Kitchin, who worked with Bell for a decade.
Rubini works on an outdoor white brick construction in downtown Dallas as host of his self-titled radio show, “David Rubini After Midnight”. The studio is not a big jolt: a remote microphone with 3 PC screens, squeezed into a soundproof area along The Paranormal and politics are his themes of the day, transmitted with a voice whose cadence and tone resemble those of Alex Jones, the famous far-right radio provocateur.
Rubini has spent most of his career as a producer, designing program formats and booking visitors for other presenters on the conspiratorial radio scene. Explore your Rolodex and locate contacts for UFO hunters, flat land hunters, and Roger Stone.
“I have to be diplomatically friendly to the craziest, most attractive and desirable people in the world,” he said.
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Rubini’s trail nevertheless crossed bell’s after Texas began running for John B. Wells, another far-right radio announcer, who at one point was a replacement announcer on “Coast-to-Coast AM”. This led to a concert production for Rubini on Dark Matter, a streaming service presented in 2015 to broadcast Bell’s new show, “Midnight in the Desert”, and other conspiracy-oriented content.
“There are billions of paranormal/conspiracy podcasts out there,” Rubini said. “They are all like imitations Elvis. Es a slow evolution, yet it was he who encouraged the world to think differently. It’s just a laughing radio.
Dark Matter and “Midnight in the Desert” got off to a fast start, attracting visitors as high as Joe Rogan and Neil deGrasse Tyson. But good fortune was short-lasting. Bell retired in 2015 after only a few months of air time, fearing enthusiasts would sign up for his Nevada home, according to media reports. Three years later, he died at the age of 72 from an accidental overdose of painkillers and prescription drugs.
Every day, his death on Friday the 13th.
Midnight in the Desert: combined animators for years after Bell’s departure. The production company needed a review, so a friend put Rubini in touch with Marshalek, a Bell and Dark Matter fan. He had no radio experience, according to RubiniArray still introduced. monetary assistance and sought to keep the program running.
Marshalek’s LinkedIn page says he is the CEO of a data generation company called ETT. The business takes place from his apartment in Hoboken, Rubini says.
According to Rubini, the two reached a handshake agreement in March 2020 for Marshalek to buy the service for $80,000, and then tell Rubini, who would repay the interest-free loan. Marshalek would be a silent lender who was just looking for Dark Matter. flourish, Rubini thought, but his prospects have changed.
“He’s crazy, ” Rubini.
Marshalek participated in the city council’s virtual meetings in Hoboken last year, initiating court cases against local government and its restrictions on social estating.
“Fascism will not be tolerated here,” he told a council meeting on August 19, according to online news page Tapinto. Net. “You repress other people, you scare other people, you subvert the classical media with a false truth from science. ” mediated with those false deceptions to the minds of other people. Nobody died, nobody cried.
In October, Marshalek was arrested at his Garden Street home after allegedly barricading himself inside the apartment with his son. The Hudson County SWAT team closed the community. After four hours, they pierced the brown stone and kidnapped the boy, according to a policewoman. affidavit.
Marshalek accused of endangering children, with a penalty of up to 10 years. He was released after his arrest and the case is pending.
The incident stems from a dispute over whether his disabled son wears a mask to go to school, Marshalek told Hudson County View in January, who filed a statement of his goal of suing the city for unfair arrest and asset damage, according to the newspaper.
Rubini’s suit says he spent months as chief operating officer and executive manufacturer of Dark Matter. Meanwhile, he chose a replacement for “Midnight in the Desert” and presented “Best of Art Bell”, a sample of Bell’s old screens.
But in July, according to the lawsuit, Marshalek excluded Rubini as director of Dark Matter. Replaced all PC passwords and “kidnapped” commands in program format, music presenters, board operator. and social media posts, the costume says.
Philip Guarino, Marshalek’s lawyer, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The streaming service has been running lately through Marshalek, who has installed new hosts and updated the Dark Matter website, according to Rubini.
In addition, Rubini claims that he no longer broadcasts Bell’s old programs.
“They have lost all inheritance. But I’m going to rebuild it,” he said.
The irony, all the big conspiracy theories are tinged with that, is that Bell wouldn’t care much who would end his old business, said Kitchin, Hall of Fame president.
“He was busier delivering a smart radio screen after another that wasn’t his legacy,” Kitchin said. “It wasn’t an announcer who said, “I have to do this now so I can do it later, ” no long as you were interested. saying, “I have a wonderful radio screen for you tonight. “
Tom Nobile covers Bergen County Superior Court for NorthJersey. com. To get unlimited life news, from criminal trials to local lawsuits and in-depth analytics, subscribe or activate your virtual account today.
Email: nobile@northjersey. com
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