Dr. Phil denies swindling anybody in bankruptcy case testimony

“We’re here because they ignored the fact that the time that it takes for a startup network to get to a point of fruition, and turnaround is four to five years, and they were explained this from the jump,” Dr. Phil declared. “We discussed it on numerous occasions, and they just didn’t stay the course long enough for it to get to that point. This was a four-to-five year journey, and if they had just stayed in long enough, I think this would have been the best investment they had ever made.”

McGraw contested earlier testimony that Merit had drawn poor viewership (per The Hollywood Reporter): “We’d gone up 51 slots since launch, probably the most successful launch in a decade. We had millions of people watching. I don’t know what he’s talking about. The last thing I wanted to do was sue TBN or shut down Merit Street.”

Previous evidence suggested that McGraw and MSM were going behind Trinity’s back to launch Envoy from the ashes of MSM’s bankruptcy. That includes text messages from MSM execs warning others not to communicate about the new venture from MSM devices. McGraw was also said to have described a scheme in which he convinced Trinity to dilute its shares of MSM (dropping Trinity to a 30% stake and increasing McGraw’s production company Peteski to a 70% stake) as a “gangster move.” Dr. Phil did not deny using the phrase, but said he had been “doing everything I can to keep Merit up and running. This theory, that this was all a ploy to set up Envoy Media, is absurd.” He didn’t want to file for bankruptcy, he “capitulated” to it, he claimed. “I fought it. I fought it. I fought it. It was not a victory for me. It was not a winning strategy for me.”