Most of Tuesday’s regular monthly Fair Finance Co. bankruptcy court hearing in downtown Akron involved legal wrangling over motions on related litigation.
There was almost no discussion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Fair Finance Trustee Brian Bash’s status report in which Bash said he expected to have about $85 million in claims in pending litigation by the end of January.
That report along with other court documents and more can be found at the trustee’s website, www.kccllc.net/fairfinance.
Part of Tuesday’s courtroom hearing involved discussions on language over an agreement to return more than $185,000 in political contributions made with Fair Finance money to former Indianapolis-area county prosecutor Carl Brizzi.
Brizzi in September 2009 was named a director of Fair Finance and has been described as a friend of Fair co-owner Timothy Durham. Brizzi stepped down as Fair Finance director in October 2009, shortly after accepting the position.
About 5,300 Ohio residents and organizations bought more than $200 million in uninsured investment certificates from Fair Finance. The longtime Akron firm never reopened following FBI raids just before Thanksgiving in 2009; creditors forced the business into bankruptcy in February 2010.
Bash and his team have been tracking where Fair Finance might have money and other assets that can be returned to the creditors, many of whom are elderly and were depending on the investment certificate income in their retirement.
Durham and Fair Finance’s other Indiana co-owner, James Cochran, along with a former Fair executive, are awaiting federal trial in Indianapolis on charges that they operated the company as a Ponzi investment scheme after Durham and Cochran bought the business in 2002.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com
