Ervin Booker Scammed me out of money on a financing deal to set up a film production fund Nationwide

I was a director of a production company called based in London which developed and financed feature films in the United Kingdom.  We were introduced to a financier called Ervin Booker who was based in Richmond, British Columbia.  In September 2005 we set Mr. Booker up with other financiers who were able to work out a transaction whereby our company would be set up with a revolving film fund over a four year period. Mr. Booker stated that the person whose money he would be moving wanted $50,000 from my company to ‘secure’ his money and that this money would be paid back to us regardless of whether the transaction went through or not.  We also got a personal guarantee written into the contract that Mr. Booker would pay us back the money.  

In the end I paid $25,000 to Mr. Booker however soon afterwards the deal fell through.  Mr. Booker has promised to pay my company back the money in numerous e-mails and phone calls however the money was not forthcoming.  In November I received more e-mails from Mr. Booker firstly stating that his daughter was stranded in Paris and needed £2,000 sent to her and would I do this...which I didn’t.  I then received another e-mail from Mr. Booker looking for another £2,000 to secure a standby letter credit for another film deal.  

In hindsight it seems very foolish of us to have ever handed over money to Mr. Booker and at the time we were cautious.  His lawyer was Bonnie Berry Lamon, an entertainment lawyer at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP in Los Angeles and she was working alongside Jack Vaughan also of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP based in New York who was dealing with the finance side.  I asked Ms. Lamon if she could vouch for Mr. Booker and she said she had known him a number of years and could vouch for him. However Ms. Lamon soon left Kirkpatrick and Jack Vaughan says he did not deal directly with Mr. Booker.