Real estate developer Tim Blixseth was ordered to pay $41 million to creditors of the luxury Montana resort he helped drive into bankruptcy, by a federal judge who slammed the one-time billionaire for distorting the facts in the case, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Blixseth, former owner of the Porcupine Creek estate in Rancho Mirage, diverted more than $200 million from the Yellowstone Club for personal use — then sought to blame its 2008 financial collapse on others, including his ex-wife, Edra. But U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon said that Blixseth’s fraudulent transfers of money had been meticulously documented by Chief Bankruptcy Judge Ralph Kirscher, who first ordered him to pay the $41 million back in 2008. Haddon sharply criticized Blixseth’s attempts in the intervening years to shed responsibility in the case. The judge said Blixseth’s legal arguments were “intentionally misleading” and suffered from “startling disarray and confusion.”
