Poe joins EDA civil defendants in motions to nullify civil liability verdicts; Tran counsel granted additional time to file their motion to overturn jury verdict

After expressing some initial reluctance to invest more in legal fees attempting to overturn a Warren County Civil Court jury’s ruling of approximately $1.3 million in base ($945,000) and punitive ($409,800) damages against him and his Earth Right Energy (ERE) company, Donald Poe joined the line of EDA civil case defendants seeking to have Judge Bruce D. Albertson overturn jury liability verdicts rendered in July. The Poe/ERE “Motion To Set Aside Jury Verdict Or In The Alternative To Award A New Trial” was received and filed in Warren County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office on Tuesday, September 6.

Local developer Donald Poe will join other EDA civil case defendants in seeking a judicial overturn of jury verdicts of financial liability connected to the EDA financial scandal of 2014-18 swirling around former EDA executive director Jennifer McDonald.

The rationale for that motion was along the lines of previous filings by counsel for April Petty, William Lambert, and a still pending one for Truc “Curt” Tran. The defendants’ contention is that the jury verdicts were based on evidence that did not meet a civil code standard to justify the finding of liability in each defendants’ case. Similar motions to strike plaintiff EDA evidence and their cases against the defendants were made by defense counsel and denied at the outset of several of those July trials. To those arguments forwarded by defense counsel on several occasions, Judge Albertson responded that it was “for the jury to decide” the relative weight of evidence to be presented.

In a related development, on August 25 over the objection of plaintiff EDA counsel, Judge Albertson granted Tran/ITFederal counsel’s request for additional time to complete its filing for overturning of the jury’s finding of compensatory liability of about $12 million-plus some interest against Tran and ITFederal. The judge set a new filing schedule of September 15 for defense filings, plaintiff responses by October 17, and defendant replies to plaintiff’s response by October 27. An initial defense motion to overturn filing date was set for 31 days from the July 28 jury verdict in that case. Running towards an August 28 deadline on that schedule, Tran counsel sought the additional time, as noted above, granted over the plaintiff’s objection.

Truc ‘Curt’ Tran’s attorneys have received an extension to next Thursday, Sept. 15, to file their motion to overturn the jury verdict of civil liability of over $12-million from Tran and his ITFederal company.

As part of his order granting the filing extension for Tran/ITFederal, Judge Albertson ordered the defendants not to move substantial company or personal assets during the moves toward a final court ruling on the verdict: “Tran and IT Federal (on behalf of itself and on behalf of its wholly-owned subsidiary Lewisburg Way, LLC) shall not sell 943 Happy Creek Road before the court enters its final order, consistent with Code 55.1-400, which precludes fraudulent conveyances,” the judge began, adding, “Mr. Tran and IT Federal shall not dispose of, encumber, or waste any assets of IT Federal. In the same vein, IT Federal and Tran shall not gift, convey, assign, transfer or otherwise dispose of, encumber, or waste any personal assets to delay, hinder, or defraud the Warren EDA as a creditor.”

Motions to set aside the jury verdict of $125,000 of compensatory liability in April Petty’s case was filed with the court on July 28; and in William Lambert’s jury finding of $350,000 of compensatory liability, the motion to overturn was filed on August 18.

And the jury trial of Samuel North, cancelled in July following North’s filing of bankruptcy, has been rescheduled for October 25, beginning at 8:30 a.m. North is former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald’s husband. The central figure in the EDA “financial scandal”, McDonald reached a no-fault settlement agreement in her civil liability case with the FR-WC EDA. She agreed to turn over $9 million in assets, largely real estate, to the EDA to settle their claims against her; while admitting no fault in her acquisition of those assets.

She still is facing criminal trial in federal court in the Western District of Virginia on multiple charges related to the investigation into EDA finances during her executive director’s tenure. Due to its complexity and the amount of involved evidence – cited at over a million pages of documentation – that trial originally scheduled for as many as five weeks this fall, has been pushed into May 2023.

Jennifer McDonald on the job with her then EDA Board of Directors in Sept. 2018. While there were still smiles then, just 3 months later on Dec. 20, she would resign under pressure from that board as investigations into EDA finances revealed some unapproved or unexplained transactions under her authority.

See trial and verdict stories on the Royal Examiner website front page under the NEWS banner at sub-section “EDA IN FOCUS“.