LITTLE ROCK — A mattress company Friday asked a judge to deny a request to reopen a lawsuit involving thousands of its products that it says were illegally diverted to a company affiliated with the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.
Tempur-Pedic International contends in the lawsuit that it gave the mattresses to Waste to Charity, a New Jersey nonprofit, to be distributed to victims of Hurricane Katrina and others in need.
The mattress company, based in Lexington, Ky., says it later learned that Waste to Charity sold 4,000 of the mattresses to the ministry-affiliated company, Action Distributors, for at least $99,000.
Proceedings in the lawsuit were put on hold in 2008 after three defendants filed for bankruptcy.
Last month, Close Out Surplus and Savings, a company that says it bought the mattresses from Action Distributors, said in a court filing that the bankruptcies have been resolved, and it asked for the case to be reopened.
In a court filing on Friday, Tempur-Pedic told U.S. District Judge Robert Dawson that he should not reopen the case because the defendants who filed for bankruptcy were not the ones who informed the judge that the bankruptcies had been resolved.
If Dawson does reopen the case, he should allow the parties more time to gather evidence and order an inventory of a Booneville warehouse, owned by Alamo ministry members, where 3,500 of the mattresses have been stored, Tempur-Pedic said in the filing.
Ministry leader Tony Alamo, 78, was convicted in 2009 in federal court in Texarkana of taking five underage women across state lines for sex in violation of the federal Mann Act. Alamo was sentenced to 175 years in prison.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/22/2012