HOUSTON – After weeks of questions surrounding what happened to millions of dollars intended parents put forward to pay their surrogates, an amended lawsuit filed late Monday in Harris County alleges Houston-based surrogacy escrow management company has been misappropriating millions to fund its owner’s rap career and lavish lifestyle.
Surrogacy Escrow Account Management LLC or SEAM, and owner Dominique Side, has gone dark since mid-June when the company appears to have abruptly shut down and told clients legal actions forced operations to be placed on hold.
KPRC 2 has spoken with alleged victims who are intended parents from across the country, including Bellingham, Wash., White Fish, Mont., and Asbury Park, NJ, who all say their surrogates have stopped getting paid.
Late Tuesday, KPRC 2 learned an additional 23 families from across the country as well as one each from France and Italy have filed to join the lawsuit against SEAM and Side, claiming combined losses of just over $1 million.
“With every layer we peel back in this case, we discover more wickedness and greed,” said Shackelford Law Firm partner Marianne Robak. “All I can think about is how some of these defendants can sleep at night knowing they have taken millions of dollars from innocent people and, in some cases, ruined their victims’ chances at having a family of their own. It makes me sick.”
SEAM has been misappropriating the intended parents’ funds for years, records allege, to “wrongfully enrich Dominique and her business partners,” who are named in the lawsuit as Anthony Hall, Fredrick Denson, and Kevin Yancy.
More than $2.2 million of the intended parents’ funds were used to “bankroll her music career as ‘Dom,’ a racy rap and R&B singer and music producer,” the lawsuit states.
Here’s how the escrow funds were allegedly spent, based on bank records outlined in the lawsuit:
- Lavish trips all over the world
- Designer clothing and luxury vehicles
- A membership to Soho House, which is an “exclusive club for celebrities in the music industry”
Side allegedly told Capital One Bank on June 17 that she would like to close all of SEAM’s bank accounts and that she “will not longer have a use for those funds.”
Attorneys for victims subpoenaed bank records, which also revealed SEAM transferred more than $6.2 million of the intended parents’ escrow funds to finance Side and Hall’s music studio, Vgn Bae Studios.
The studio, located at 7800 Amelia Road in the Spring Branch area, has an estimated $700,000 to $1.3 million worth of music equipment and other fixtures in it, according to records.
SEAM also apparently paid $21,000 per month to rent the building that houses the music studio, which was recently listed for sale for $3.5 million, records show.
In June, Side allegedly told Capitol One that she’s no longer associated with Vgn Bae and that Hall had become the sole owner.
KPRC 2 has repeatedly tried to reach Side but she hasn’t responded. An auto-response to an email stated that she is subject to an active investigation by federal authorities and she’s been advised by legal counsel to not respond to any inquiries.
Bank records also revealed SEAM purchased land in Houston worth at least $575,000 in 2019, built a custom home in New Orleans worth about $300,000 in 2023, and bought a home on Winton Street in Houston in the name of the music studio worth about $433,000, records show.
Additionally, some of the money allegedly went to Nikki Green, LLC which is apparently a designer clothing company owned by Side, Hall, and Christopher Thompson.
That company in October 2023 allegedly showcased its clothing line at a Las Vegas Fashion Week. Records indicate the apparel showcased and all expenses incurred by that LLC were funded with intended parents’ money.
An estimated $750,000 went to Denson, records state, who owned SEAM up until 2017, which was an apparent “kickback based on the amount of escrow funds SEAM receives every month,” which were transfers not known nor authorized by the intended parents.
Hall allegedly received at least $100,000 of the intended parents’ funds, and around the time SEAM appears to have collapsed, SEAM conveyed the Houston land worth around $575,000 to Hall for $10, according to a Texas General Warranty Deed filed in court records.
In January 2024, SEAM pledged $69,500 of intended parents’ escrow funds to Pearl Delta Funding, LLC in exchange for a payment of $48,250 in cash, according to records. After that money went into SEAM’s operating account, it was allegedly withdrawn to pay Side’s American Express card.
“[The intended parents] did everything correctly and here comes a coward and takes the money and doesn’t explain herself,” Houston attorney Lori Hood of Shackelford Law Firm told KPRC 2 last month. “We’re not talking about an inexpensive process. People save for years to be able to do this.”
Records allege that SEAM transferred all of its remaining assets to avoid its creditors, and around June 14, transferred anything that it considered to be an asset to Hall.
Side has also allegedly erased her social media accounts and most of her websites.
A second lawsuit was filed late Friday in Harris County by a different Houston attorney, Cody Dumas, on behalf of an alleged victim from Dallas. Dumas told KPRC 2′s Bryce Newberry his firm has been in touch with nearly 100 alleged victims from across the country, including some in France and Asia.
If you’ve been impacted by SEAM, the FBI is still asking for any information to be submitted using this online form.