LONOKE -- Lonoke County Circuit Judge Sandy Huckabee on Friday denied motions to declare a mistrial in a lawsuit stemming from the 2014 collapse of Turner Grain Merchandising.
The jury in a lawsuit filed by a group of Lonoke County farmers was shown a videotaped deposition Thursday afternoon that included comments referring to a "Ponzi scheme," a remark Huckabee days ago ruled should be excluded from trial.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the video airing was inadvertent, but defense attorneys immediately called for a mistrial.
Huckabee denied the motions Friday morning outside the jury's presence.
Also Friday, another juror was excused for cause by Huckabee, the third departure of the 12-member panel since testimony began Monday. Three alternates were chosen, and all three now fill the vacated spaces. Arkansas rules for civil procedure require 12-member juries for civil trials, with nine votes needed to reach a verdict.
Testimony in the trial opened Monday and it is scheduled to continue through Feb. 28.
The Lonoke County farmers lost some $5.5 million for 832,700 bushels of rice taken from their farms and delivered for export and never received payment for their grain.
Turner Grain Merchandising Inc., a grain dealer in Brinkley, was closed Aug. 12, 2014, when federal regulators found no rice in grain bins certified as being full. It has filed for bankruptcy in federal court, listing some $14 million in assets and $47 million in debt.
The videotaped deposition of David Glidewell, then a regional grain manager for Archer Daniels Midland, a major commodities trader, was taken Aug. 31, 2018, in Albany, Ga., where he now lives and works.
In discussing what he knew of Turner Grain's business operations and ultimate collapse, Glidewell said the company had been known to offer farmers considerably higher prices for their grain than what other grain marketers were offering.
Around the time of Turner Grain's collapse, Glidewell said he'd been talking to others he knew in agriculture about the company's problems. "He [an associate] had heard the chatter and, you know, I guess that last one is just me making some personal speculation," Glidewell said in the deposition. "Ponzi scheme might not have been the best description, but it just -- you know, it -- had a lot -- I think at that time, you know, it was during the Madoff trials," a reference to Bernie Madoff, the financier who pleaded guilty in 2009 to bilking investors of some $65 billion.
Defense attorneys for KBX Inc., a grain broker and exporter in Benton, and other defendants in the case objected, and all called Friday morning for new a trial.
"You cannot unring a bell, you cannot put the genie back in the bottle," Cecil Nolan Jr., the defense attorney for Dale Bartlett, a co-founder of Turner Grain.
Scott Poynter, an attorney for KBX, asked Huckabee to reconsider. He noted that the plaintiffs earlier this week dropped, or "non-suited," the alleged counts of breach of contract. Fraud, constructive fraud and conspiracy are among the counts still in the lawsuit, but Poynter said the plaintiffs have shown no supporting evidence.
Defendants, he said, deserved a clean slate of what they're being accused of doing.
Business on 02/08/2020