Saying the Prossers have "dissipated" a fortune in fine wines in violation of court orders and that they continue to file misinformation in court documents, court appointed trustees handling Jeffrey Prosser’s bankruptcy assets both recently asked for contempt of court sanctions against the Prossers and their attorneys.
Meanwhile, the Prossers continue to repeat bribery and conspiracy accusations against the attorneys handling his former assets; accusations that are themselves one of the reasons cited as a justification for sanctions.
Prosser, formerly the owner of Vitelco and the two Innovative cable TV companies, has been in bankruptcy since 2006.
Millions of dollars worth of wine have disappeared and several hundred thousand dollars worth ruined by intentional mistreatment, according to James Carroll, the trustee chosen by U.S. Bankruptcy Court to oversee Prosser’s personal estate while it is sold to pay Prosser’s personal creditors. Carroll made the accusation in a motion for sanctions filed August 8.
According to Carroll’s filing, Prosser’s wife, Dawn Prosser, and the trustee both signed a stipulation itemizing all the wines at the Prosser’s Palm Beach residence and their Estate Shoys residence on St. Croix, agreeing the wine was worth between $2.15 and $2.28 million. The court enjoined the Prosser’s from consuming the wine and requiring them to preserve and maintain them for sale. But when it came time to inventory the two wine cellars in March, 480 bottles – half the Palm Beach inventory – was missing, and the St. Croix wines were spoiled due to purposeful negligence, according to Carroll.
On St. Croix, an inventory done in 2008 found Prosser’s wine safely stored inside a temperature controlled wine cellar. But upon coming back to check on the wines in 2010, Carroll’s people found they had been taken out of their neatly sorted storage space and stacked haphazardly in a hot storage room. Representatives of Christie’s auction house appraised the wines, previously valued at more than $300,000 and declared all of it "unsalable and thus valueless." according to Carroll.
Carroll is seeking civil contempt charges against the Prossers, and to have Dawn Prosser be made financially liable for the loss.
The Prossers, for their part, deny the accuracy of the stipulations they signed and say there is no proof Prosser’s former head of security, Oakland Benta, who Carroll says greeted him at the house and witnessed the inventory for Prosser, had authorization to act as the Prosser’s agent that day. They also deny they drank or otherwise "dissipated" the wine.
Meanwhile, the Prossers have repeatedly filed motions with the court alleging a grand conspiracy among multiple federal judges, stateside legal firms, all the members of the V.I. Public Services Commission, Prosser’s many creditors and Gov. John de Jongh Jr. to get Prosser’s former personal assistant to perjure himself in order to "destroy" Prosser. They both have claimed in court documents that the U.S. attorney is investigating Springel and his attorneys and that several attorneys are about to be indicted for their role in the alleged conspiracy.
In June, Stan Springel, the trustee chosen by U.S. Bankruptcy Court to oversee Prosser’s former corporate assets, filed a motion for contempt, saying Dawn Prosser and attorney Jeffrey Moorhead repeatedly, intentionally made "knowingly false statements in court filings intended to mislead the Court" when they alleged an investigation is under way, bribes occurred, and indictments are imminent.
Since that time the Prossers filed a "notice for clarification," again insinuating Springel’s attorney’s are being investigated, pointing to billing records referring to conversations with the U.S. Department of Justice and asking Springel to prove he was not the subject of an investigation. Vinson and Elkins, the law firm representing Springel, list several items as "telephone conference with Stan Springel regarding Justice Department Inquiries," on its billing invoices.
Springel filed a response Aug. 12, saying the law firm has been responding to inquiries about Prosser, not about himself.
"Such inquiries were from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the United States Trustee, the United States Attorney’s Office for the United States Virgin Islands, and/or the Department of Justice," Springel’s attorneys wrote in his response. "Since the fall of 2007 through the present, no representative of any of the Governmental Authorities has advised Trustee Springel or (Vinson and Elkins) that they are the target of any investigation," they wrote in the response.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court will address both motions for sanctions against the Prossers at an omnibus hearing Aug. 30. The Prossers’ request for another evidentiary hearing on their conspiracy allegations and plans to sell off Dawn Prosser’s jewelry and art to pay creditors will also be on the agenda.
