Fresh Loaf

Paul Donsky of the AJC reports that Wachovia Bank has filed a lawsuit against Wayne Mason, the Gwinnett County developer who in 2008 made a windfall off Beltline property in Northeast Atlanta. The lawsuit stems from a $7.5 million loan that Mason took out in 2004 to buy three units in Buckhead medical office building.

According to the lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Mason failed to pay $7.07 million remaining on the loan that came due in February. The lawsuit names both Mason and a company he controls, Lone Pine, as defendants.

In a statement issued through a spokeswoman, Mason said he received a copy of the complaint Wednesday afternoon.

“Our lawyers will be reviewing its allegations and we’ll respond accordingly,” he said.

Documents included in the lawsuit say Mason and Lone Pine borrowed the money to buy three units at the Palisades at West Paces, a medical office building near I-75 and Northside Parkway. The lawsuit did not say what Mason did with the property.

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Anita Beatty of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless alleges that the city conspired to shut down her Midtown facility.

A lawsuit filed by the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless that accuses the city of Atlanta of using “improper, illegal and unethical means” in an attempt to shut down the organization’s controversial Peachtree-Pine shelter will get its day in Fulton County Superior Court on Sept. 21.

The 23-page filing alleges that the city has used a multi-pronged approach since 2007 to try and shut down the shelter — the largest of its kind in Atlanta, and, according to neighbors and city officials, a magnet for crime in a gentrifying corridor.

City Hall officials have damaged the organization’s reputation and ability to compete for funding, the task force’s lawyers claim, by delaying certification needed to apply for grants, making defamatory remarks to private donors, and cutting off water service to the shelter for unpaid bills. The lawsuit also accuses officials with Central Atlanta Progress, a civic booster group, of instigating the media to report negatively on the shelter.

The lawsuit asks the judge to stop the city from collecting on the shelter’s water bill debts, defaming the task force, and refusing to issue the certification it needs to seek funding. (Here’s a link to a PDF of the task force’s lawsuit.)

A.J. Robinson of Central Atlanta Progress strongly denies any conspiracy between the downtown organization and City Hall to shut down the task force. In an interview with CL, Robinson claimed that other local organizations were more effective than the task force when it comes to helping people break the cycle of homelessness.

“It’s not about the homeless population,” Robinson said of the dispute. “It’s about a very poorly managed and poorly operated operation. I wish we could influence the media to shine a light on this organization and how the people in there are not being served. There are better facilities around the community that can serve that purpose.”

(more…)

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Ethics watchdog George Anderson, the Peach State’s most well-known rabble-rouser, has filed another lawsuit against Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford.

Among other accusations, Anderson alleges in the July 16 filing that Bedford, a colorful character who’s made headlines in the past, has misdirected fees commonly referred to as “contempt of court” fines.

The ethics watchdog alleges Bedford has solicited charitable contributions from courtroom spectators whose cell phones rang during trials. Anderson alleges Bedford recommends they contribute to the Brandon Foundation, a charity managed by his wife and daughters. Normally, fines for violations go to the Circuit Clerk’s office.

In February, Bedford said he’d never specified to which charities cell-phone scofflaws could contribute. He told the AJC in February that Anderson’s allegations damage the Brandon Foundation, which Bedford’s daughter says helps young cancer patients pay transportation costs for treatment.

If all this sounds familiar, it’s because Anderson made similar allegations against Bedford last October with the Judicial Qualifications Commission. He says the commission still hasn’t sufficiently followed through on that complaint. CL covered the October filing, which was one of the more bizarre press conferences we’ve ever attended.

(more…)

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South Peachtree Creek Trail in DeKalb County

Another shot has been fired in the ongoing dispute between a DeKalb County civic association and the nonprofit PATH Foundation over a one-mile multi-use trail north of Decatur.

On May 19, the Three Forks Heritage Alliance and three of its members filed an $8 million lawsuit in DeKalb County Superior Court against the trail builder, claiming it should return money it’s received to construct several projects in the county, including one that connects Medlock and Mason Mill Parks.

A press release from the alliance announcing the lawsuit claims that “monies paid to PATH on this and at least seven other projects should be returned, in whole, to the DeKalb County coffers, which currently has a $64 million deficit.”

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Tom Coffin, the Atlanta arborist whose firing last summer caused a firestorm of controversy, says he’s suing the city.

In a suit filed Friday, Coffin’s attorneys say his supervisors at City Hall violated the state’s “whistleblower” statute when he was fired after raising questions about his colleagues’ alleged lax enforcement of the city’s tree ordinance.

“The City Council passed and the Mayor signed the Tree Protection Ordinance in recognition of how important trees are to the health and well-being of the city,” Coffin says in a press release. “I was hired to enforce the law and to ensure that my colleagues did so as well. My firing leaves the city with a broken ordinance and a mockery of enforcement. It is outrageous that I should have to sue for my job while the City, in the midst of a severe economic crisis, pays five field arborists to ‘look the other way’ and make excuses for their lack of performance and accountability to the law.”

Coffins wants the city to rehire him and pay compensatory damages. He is represented by Brian Spears and Gerry Weber, former legal director of the Georgia American Civil Liberties Union.

View the press release and a pasted version of the suit after the jump. You can also download a PDF of the suit here.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Sheree Whitfield, one of stars of the Bravo’s televised clusterfuck “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” will appear in Georgia Supreme Court on Monday to argue a Fulton County court’s refusal to grant her alimony and a new trial.

In court documents, Sheree’s attorneys say the lower court erred when it didn’t grant alimony to the reality-TV star. Her ex-husband, Bob, is a former Atlanta Falcons player who now operates several successful businesses, including a recording studio that earns him $50,000 annually.

His lawyer says Sheree has received more than enough compensation and is delaying a move out of the $2.6-million Sandy Springs residence awarded to her in the divorce.

“The trial court left no stone unturned in regard to determining the assets and incomes of the parties,” [Bob Whitfield's] lawyer argues in the briefs. From the divorce, she receives a total yearly income of $113,422. In addition, she gets a portion of three NFL retirement programs. His attorney argues she should be fined $2,500 for bringing a frivolous appeal solely for the purpose of delaying the time when she’ll have to vacate the Sandy Springs home.

Whitfield, as we’ve mentioned, is one of the four “real housewives” who’ve recently fallen on hard times, and in the process, become even more “real.” The television show was recently picked up for a second season by Bravo and is sure to be another trainwreck of exurban charity dinners, awkward cocktail parties and montages of makeup-caked women getting pedicures. It will be a triumphant success.

Full summary of the Whitfields’ case, including numbers, names and a smorgasbord of factoids, follows after the jump.

(more…)

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The mystical and sorely missed Andisheh — who’s got some news about his latest projects posted on his blog — sends a link from the Boston Herald:

A Boston postal worker is suing OutKast frontman Andre 3000, the Cartoon Network and Turner Broadcasting for $2 million in damages, saying they ripped off his idea for an animated series about a group of young musicians and aired it as “Class of 3000.”

Timothy McGee, 33, a former art student, claims he developed “characters, artwork, storylines . . . and concepts” for an animated series he called “The Music Factory of the ’90s,” nearly 10 years before the oddly similar “Class” began airing on the Cartoon channel.

McGee’s show followed a group of young musicians “as they try to break into Atlanta’s burgeoning music scene,” the suit says.

His characters included “a young corporate type” who dreams of being a music producer, a “tough full-of-attitude female executive, a young techno-whiz sound engineer, a talented young Asian singer and a central energetic young singer/rapper.”

And the Herald goes where I swore I wouldn’t.

What the Hey (Ya)???

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The Savannah Morning News reports U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss — the incumbent Republican who’s facing an unexpectedly tough race against Democratic challenger Jim Martin — has been ordered to provide evidence for lawsuits stemming from the Imperial Sugar refinery explosion that killed 14 workers earlier this year.

The action surfaced less than two weeks before the Nov. 4 election, which pits Chambliss in a tight race against Democrat Jim Martin.

Savannah attorney Mark Tate says Chambliss might be part of an Imperial “effort to shift responsibility” away from the company.

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Tate says he thinks Imperial enlisted Chambliss to help “denigrate the reputation” and “bias the Chatham County jury pool” against Graham H. Graham, Imperial Sugar’s vice president for operations.

Graham said at a July Senate hearing that the company stymied his efforts to make the plants safer.

At the hearing, Chambliss, who in 2007 received $1,000 from Imperial’s political committee, badgered Graham and questioned the Imperial executive’s sincerity.

To read more about Chambliss rushing to Imperial Sugar’s defense, click here. To read CL’s coverage of Georgia’s U.S. Senate race, click here.

(Hat tip to Jim Galloway at Political Insider)

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The Clayton Daily News reports a Clayton County Sheriff’s Department employee has filed a discrimination lawsuit against Sheriff Victor Hill and the state. The plaintiff, Pamela Blasingim, alleges Hill lavishly spent vending machine and forfeited drug funds on various items, including office artwork that sounds so wild it’ll blow your mind. Click here to read the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, Pamela Blasingim, the plaintiff, alleges Hill demoted her because she had a disagreement with a friend of Hill’s who cut inmates’ hair and because she was white. Blasingim says in the lawsuit Hill wanted an all-black department.

Here are some choice snippets from the Clayton Daily News‘ report on the lawsuit:

The lawsuit also outlines allegations of egregious misuses of money in the sheriff’s office. According to the accountant, three days into Hill’s term, he called her into his office and asked about expense accounts and discretionary funds. Blasingim expected to be asked to brief the newly elected sheriff about purchasing policies, but Hill, she said, seemed to only be interested in finding out where there was money he could use as he saw fit.

Blasingim reportedly said “the only thing even close” to a discretionary fund would be the “employee fund,” which was money from the vending machines in the jail and was, under previous sheriffs, used for retirement parties or a Christmas dinner.

At the time Hill took office, there was about $8,339.47 in the vending machine account, according to the lawsuit.

According to Blasingim, Hill bought seven of his own vending machines, placing them in the jail, collecting “thousands of dollars weekly,” spending it on “whatever Sheriff Hill wanted to spend it on.” What it was spent on is, apparently, unaccounted for, but Blasingim alleges Hill spent the money faster than he made it.

…

Some of the money was spent on art for Hill’s office, according to the lawsuit. Blasingim implies the artwork — African-American cowboys and “a lynch mob scene portraying Caucasian people with shotguns” — had racist overtones that matched the sheriff’s alleged employment policies.

Hill continued to spend money, even when there wasn’t any left in the drug forfeiture fund or the vending machine fund, she alleged. Hill would, allegedly, make purchases or create debts and then tell Blasingim to sort out the finances.

(Photo from Re-elect Victor Hill)

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