Zeus CEO Lemuel Plummer Ordered To Pay Back $9.8 Million — Arbitrators Say He Treated The Company Account Like His Own
The Zeus Network money fight just got real paperwork. A panel of three arbitrators has ordered Zeus CEO Lemuel Plummer to pay $9,826,837 back to the streaming company, after finding he paid himself unapproved compensation, moved millions through cash withdrawals and payment apps with almost no receipts, and sent $625,000 of company money to a church led by his father.
Zeus cofounders King Bach, Amanda Cerny and DeStorm Power filed a petition in Los Angeles Superior Court on September 29 asking a judge to confirm the arbitration award and turn it into an enforceable court judgment. With their legal fees and interest added, the petition puts the total at $13,779,781.25. The case sits before Judge Rupert A. Byrdsong, and as of the filing, Plummer had not yet responded.
Start with the ownership fight, because everything else hangs on it. Plummer’s position, stated under oath in January 2024, was that Bach, Cerny and Power “were never members” of Zeus because they never paid their capital contributions. The panel didn’t buy it — pointing to years of Plummer calling them cofounders, the K-1 tax forms Zeus sent them as members from 2018 through 2021, and a 2021 Breakfast Club appearance where he said they held equity. The panel called his testimony on the question “at best, confusing and inconsistent; at worst, it was simply not credible,” and ruled in December 2025 that all three are members. Under the operating agreement, Plummer holds 42.67% of Zeus; Bach, Cerny and Power hold 16% each.
Then came the money. The biggest single item: Zeus sent roughly $3.6 million to third parties through PayPal, Cash App, Venmo, Apple Cash and Zelle, and Plummer’s own expert could only find paperwork for $131,666 of it. The panel ordered him to repay $3,467,000. Cash got the same treatment — Zeus withdrew $1,997,867 in cash, only $23,700 of it backed by any record, and Plummer has to repay $1,974,167. According to the panel, Zeus had one checking account and one debit card, and Plummer was the only person authorized to use either.
The panel also found Plummer paid himself $1,436,000 beyond the salary range he had floated to his partners — $200,000 to $300,000 a year — without the discussion the operating agreement required. Add $770,222 that Zeus paid to L Plummer Media, a company Plummer owns, $1,006,933 in reimbursements paid straight to him, and $547,515 in repayments on a $905,504 “loan” from his own company that was never documented anywhere.
And then there’s the church. Plummer directed $625,000 of Zeus money to COGIC Israel, a church led by his father. Jason Tolbert, who later became Zeus’ president, supported the payments but testified they had no business purpose. The panel called them a misappropriation of company funds.
To be fair to the full picture, the cofounders swung bigger than they landed. They accused Plummer of misappropriating about $56 million; the panel awarded roughly $9.8 million. Millions in spending they challenged — private jets, ground transportation, Super Bowl tickets, a production house lease — was approved as legitimate business expense. What the panel kept coming back to was the paperwork: it called Zeus’ recordkeeping “woefully deficient.” The panel also denied Plummer’s $10.9 million counterclaim over DeStorm Power’s 2025 video “Truth About Zeus Networks,” finding he never proved the video caused the losses he claimed.
The award reaches past the money, too. The panel found Zeus hasn’t filed tax returns for several years and made Plummer personally responsible for any IRS fines, penalties or interest that follow. It ordered him to keep accurate books, give the cofounders access to the records, send quarterly financial statements, and resume the tax distributions he cut off after 2021. On top of the $9.8 million, Plummer personally owes the three cofounders $1.74 million toward their attorneys’ fees and costs, plus 8.25% annual interest on the damages going back to October 2022.
For scale: according to the award, Zeus passed 2 million subscribers, and its gross revenue reached $115,297,700 in 2024. This is not a little operation fighting over pocket change — it’s one of the biggest independent streaming platforms in the culture, and its own founders just spent three years proving in arbitration who really owns it and where the money went.
What happens next is mechanical but important. Under California law, Judge Byrdsong can confirm the award, correct it, vacate it or dismiss the petition, and Plummer has the right to fight it. If the court confirms it, the award becomes a judgment the cofounders can enforce like any other. Plummer previously said the matter was being handled in court and he would respond there. His response is now the next move.
Sources: the arbitration award and the Los Angeles Superior Court petition, as reported by Baller Alert.
