The legal wrangling continues between Johnelle Hunt and Tim Graham and former business partners Bill Schwyhart and Robert Thornton - all developers who sparked the building boom along the Interstate 540 corridor in Rogers and once operated a charter-airplane business, which has become a point of contention.
Hunt, widow of trucking magnate J.B. Hunt, and Graham, a close friend of the couple, have been attempting to collect some $16 million in state court judgments from car dealer-turned-developer Schwyhart, the long-retired Thornton and their collective entities.
The current issue is a court action in Benton County Circuit Court between Schwyhart and Thornton and Chicago billionaire John Calamos and his airplane business, Ajax LLC. When Schwyhart and Thornton parted ways with Hunt and Graham in 2007, eight months after J.B. Hunt’s death, Schwyhart pinned Calamos and Ajax as a partner for the 20-plus airplanes Johnelle Hunt and Graham owned with Schwyhart and Thornton as part of Pinnacle Air. But there was a stipulation - the planes would be refinanced within 90 days of the agreement so Hunt and Graham would no longer have an interest in them.
Eventually, Hunt was saddled with the airplanes and had to sell them at a $25 million loss. Since then, Schwyhart and Thornton have sued Calamos for failure to arrange financing for the planes. That case is set for trial Nov. 4.
Hunt, the principal of J.B. Hunt Holdings, her Big Horn Financing LLC and Tim Graham LLC filed a complaint in Benton County Circuit Court on Thursday claiming stake to any judgment that could result from the November trial.
When contacted Friday, Schwyhart said he had seen the complaint only the day before and was not prepared to comment.
John George, a spokesman for Hunt, said, “We make no comments during pending or ongoing litigation.”
Business, Pages 31 on 09/28/2013