Sulja faces $1.5-million claim
Merger partner’s court judgment unpaid, lender says
BY GARY RENNIE STAR STAFF REPORTER
(First published 11/30/2006)
canada.com
A Harrow-based lumber yard which has come under the gaze of the RCMP and nervous shareholders is on the hook for a $1.5-million civil judgment in the United States, the president of a U.S. mortgage company said Wednesday.
John Chandler, president of Progressive Mortgage Inc., said the judgment, awarded in Wayne County Circuit Court, should have been paid when Harrow-based Sulja Bros. Building Materials Ltd. merged with Loftwerks Inc. earlier this year.
“Sulja is now responsible for the debt,” Chandler said from Richmond, Va. “Sulja and Loftwerks are the same company.”
Windsor lawyer Shahid Khan, who has told The Star he worked on the merger of Sulja with Loftwerks, wouldn’t answer questions about whether he knew of Chandler’s lawsuit and eventual judgment at the time of the incorporation in Nevada.
“Everything is between lawyer and client,” Khan said Wednesday.
Khan is also president of the Sulja board of directors. A call to Steve Sulja, CEO of Sulja Bros., was not returned. Former Loftwerks CEO Dennis Ammerman couldn’t be reached Wednesday.
Chandler said his company loaned US $988,000 million in two mortgages to Loftwerks Inc. and Ammerman to carry out a condominium development at 447 East Milwaukee St. in Detroit. But money that should have gone into the renovations was diverted and the project eventually came to a halt with the empty building still unfinished, Chandler said.
Chandler said he’s asked his Michigan lawyer, Jay Abramson, to pursue collection of the Michigan court judgment against Sulja Bros. He also asked the Richmond FBI to investigate where the money loaned for the condominium project ended up.
Detroit FBI agent Pam Matson confirmed Wednesday that Chandler had filed a complaint. She could not comment further.
Chandler said his lawyers have had difficulty tracing Ammerman to collect the judgment against him. The building on East Milwaukee that was the subject of the lawsuit is expected to be sold at a sheriff’s auction in the next few months and the money will go to pay down the judgment.
Sulja, recently one of the most hotly trades stocks on the North American penny stock market, has been under pressure from shareholders to make good on promises that it would release audited financial statements. The company’s former CEO, Petar Vucicevich, has been questioned by the RCMP about the stock.
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