Companies that claim an Albany-based lender defrauded them out of more than $22 million are trying to force the lender to liquidate its assets, the Albany Business Review reported. The three companies last week filed an involuntary chapter 7 bankruptcy petition against the lender, Prime Capital Ventures LLC, and convinced a federal judge to authorize an independent trustee to oversee the lender’s assets. The order, issued last Thursday by Judge Robert E. Littlefield Jr. of the Northern District of New York, found that the appointment of an interim trustee was needed “to preserve property of the estate and to prevent loss to the estate.” In response to Judge Littlefield’s order, the U.S. Trustee program, a part of the Department of Justice that oversees bankruptcy cases, appointed attorney Christian H. Dribusch as the interim trustee. Dribusch will serve in the role until the judge grants the petition, placing Prime Capital into bankruptcy, or dismisses it. In court papers and during a hearing last week, Justin Heller of Nolan Heller Kauffman LLP, an attorney for the three companies that brought the involuntary bankruptcy case, characterized the need for a trustee as urgent. Heller said that his clients gave Prime Capital multimillion-dollar deposits that were supposed to cover interest payments for loans that the lender never issued. The companies demanded the return of their deposits but Prime Capital never obliged, according to Heller. They allege that Prime Capital has paid some amounts back to certain creditors but not others.
