In June, WFPL reported on the Metro Messenger. The monthly newspaper was meant to be an alternative to what publisher David Rose called the "negative focus" of Louisville's mainstream media.Here's some bad news. Rose is now wanted by the police.WHAS11 reports that Rose allegedly bilked his girlfriend out of thousands of dollars, making her the latest in a series of people Rose owes money to.“He said he was going to put the Courier Journal out of business,” said his former girlfriend. “That's what he told everybody he came into contact with.”
The former girlfriend cashed out her retirement account, spending tens-of-thousands of dollars to finance Rose's media empire.
“Everything was being paid for with her funds… telephones, bills, payroll, everything,” said Kathryn Kennedy Wallace, a Louisville attorney who represents Rose’s former girlfriend.
She was contacted by the young lady when the alleged victim first began noticing that things didn't seem to add up.
Even though plenty of ads were sold, the business was always broke.
As Wallace dug deeper, she discovered Rose had a long criminal history, with dozens of arrests for bad checks, theft and other crimes.
We discovered Rose was also sued for running up $35,000 in unpaid bills from temporary labor services.
“He's been doing this for years. He's really good at it,” said Wallace.
In June, Rose said he was planning to print a second run of the first issue of the Messenger, then print 50,000 copies of the second issue. Originally, he'd ordered 10,000 of each. At the time, he said all of the printing costs were covered with ad revenue, but payments to the paper's seven staff members were coming from him and his business partner, whom he declined to name.
“A lot of people say print advertising is really not what it used to be. I don’t feel that it is. Newspaper print isn’t what it used to be. What we’ve seen is the content of the print is what the issue is,” said Rose in June.WHAS11 couldn't contact Rose. I tried as well and couldn't. I've contacted the other Metro Messenger employee I spoke to for the story, but neither has responded.
