Irony-Free Lawsuit Claims ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Was Financed With Ill-Gotten Money

The production company behind last year’s morality thought experiment/Scorsese triumph The Wolf of Wall Street is being sued for a number of reasons, including racketeering.

The production company behind last year’s morality thought experiment/Scorsese triumph The Wolf of Wall Street is being sued for a number of reasons, including racketeering. The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Red Granite Pictures, which is now producing a sequel to Dumb and Dumber, are being sued by Steve Stabler and Brad Krevoy, two producers of the original film, for being excluded.

Many of Red Granite’s investors are based in the Middle East and Asia, a fact that the production house has acknowledged in the past and which is not in itself a red flag. But according to the complaint:

Red Granite is funded with monies that include proceeds from offenses against a foreign nation that involve bribery of public officials, or misappropriation, theft, or embezzlement of public funds by a public official.

The suit later on states that Red Granite’s principals, Riza Aziz and Joey McFarland, financed American films such as The Wolf of Wall Street and Dumb and Dumber To [sic] “with knowledge that the transactions were designed to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the proceeds of the illegal activity,” in violation of the RICO Act.

As Variety notes, Stabler and Krevoy’s claim is light on specifics, other than citing “published reports that individuals based in Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia and other countries in Asia and the Middle East have engaged in unlawful activities.”

Red Granite said in a statement: “These false, malicious and baseless allegations are demonstrably untrue, and Red Granite looks forward to the prompt dismissal of these claims.”