A lawsuit has been filed in Federal Court in Oklahoma against two men from the Lakes Region in connection to a theme park project in Oklahoma.
Gene Bicknell of Florida filed the suit in Federal Court last week against three men including Richard Silanskas of Blue Eye and Larry Wilhite of Branson, claiming that they had defrauded him out of millions of dollars for the proposed American Heartland Theme Park in Vinita northeast of Tulsa.
According to the court document, Bicknell was originally going to help finance an expansion of Branson’s Mansion Theater, which Bicknell owned, and had hired Wilhite to manage. Wilhite then met Silanskas and they eventually developed the plan for the Oklahoma theme park.
Bicknell also claims in the lawsuit that the two along with the third defendant, Stephen Hedrick of Arizona, developed a campaign of intimidation including framing messages as they were coming from God himself to continue to finance building of the new park which has been delayed several times.
A link to the complete filing can be found here.
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