Almost two years after a once-promising organic fish farm and produce-growing venture went belly up, the Continental Organics saga continues to play out in bankruptcy court and lawsuits by two Orange County, N.Y. creditors, the Middletown (N.Y.) Times-Herald Record reported today. The creditors, a builder and an engineering firm involved in construction of the business, have sued three times to try to recover payments they claim they are owed. This month, their pending cases in district court were transferred to the bankruptcy court in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., after Michael Finnegan Sr., a founder and the CEO of Continental Organics, filed for personal bankruptcy for the second time since business went sour in 2015. Finnegan, a former top attorney for Gov. George Pataki in the mid-1990s, helped launch the New Windsor, N.Y.-based company in 2011 after working on Wall Street as a managing director at JPMorgan Chase. Part of the business involved raising thousands of tilapia at a time in large indoor pools. The other part was an aquaponics greenhouse in which lettuce, tomatoes and other produce were grown, using the fish manure as a fertilizer. Continental Organics, which expanded after it opened and was said to employ 42 people in 2014, never achieved its founders’ ambitions. The company closed and filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2015, leaving a trail of creditors and about 60,000 stranded tilapia that Sterling National Bank was still feeding to keep alive three months later.
