Jeffrey Parsons walks
Judge threatens jail
COURTS | Bruce Rushton
Despite fibbing in court documents, violating a court order and stiffing debtors, embattled entrepreneur Jeffrey Parsons got a break last week from a judge who could have jailed him for making inconsistent statements in court and failing to pay former employees who have successfully sued him.
At one point during the proceedings, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Mills threatened to do exactly that.
“Look – look up here,” Mills ordered Parsons, who began the afternoon by asking for a continuance because he didn’t have a lawyer. “What is this?” “It’s a toothbrush,” answered Parsons, looking at an object that the judge was holding up.
“We’re not going to stand for this kind of bunk,” fired back Mills, whose exasperation was sparked by Parsons not being able to say whether he had prepared a court document that bore his name and home address in Texas. “You’re messing around here, and you’re playing horse with me.”
The witness stand is familiar territory to Parsons, who slipped punches by saying that he didn’t have paperwork with him or that someone else knew the answers when his estranged wife’s lawyer spent hours trying to pin him down about finances during divorce proceedings three years ago. He tried dodging last Friday before Judge Mills, answering “I don’t recall the particulars of what transpired here” when Colleen Lawless, attorney for former employees turned creditors, asked whether he had kept his promise to send money to the successful plaintiffs late last year.
Parsons, who earned and spent a fortune buying and selling precious metals, antiques and other valuables, owes $12.2 million to employees of THR and Associates, his defunct buying-and-selling company, who were denied overtime. He owes nearly $121,000 to their attorneys. He has paid just $575 since judgment was entered nearly a year ago, failing to make any $5,155 monthly payments ordered by the court last fall. He is more than $25,000 in arrears on his payments.
In December, Parsons filed a motion asking that installment payments be suspended because he had no income and insufficient funds to travel from his home in Texas to Springfield for a hearing. But the day after filing the motion, he bought an airplane ticket to St. Louis – he told Judge Mills he had to attend his mother’s funeral. Last Thursday, the day before the hearing before Mills, Parsons filed a motion stating that, in fact, he had earned $27,000 between Nov. 12 and Jan. 1, the same time period in which he had previously told the court that he had no money and no income. In addition, Lawless established that Parsons had deposited $19,000 into a bank account in the name of his current live-in girlfriend. All told, Lawless established, Parsons had an income of $44,550 during a five-month period when he made not a single courtordered payment to the plaintiffs.
Noting that Parsons has not been able to keep his stories straight about finances, Lawless suggested that a contempt-of-court finding and jail time might be appropriate. But, in the end, nothing happened to Parsons last week.
Near the end of the hearing that lasted more than an hour, Parsons told the judge that he had $1,200 for employees who are owed more than 10,000 times that amount, handed a dozen $100 bills to the judge and walked out of the courthouse with no requirement that he do anything more than make his next three monthly payments on time. He’s due again in court in July, and Mills warned Parsons to make every courtordered payment of $5,155 per month between now and then.
“If it is not paid in each of those three months…he can come back here on July 10, 2015, and he can collect his toothbrush from me,” Mills said in closing the hearing that lasted more than an hour. “Is that clear, Mr. Parsons?” “Yes, sir.” The proceeding was just the latest chapter in a series of legal actions against Parsons. He’s been under criminal investigation by federal authorities for more than a year. The trustee in his pending bankruptcy case has accused him of fraud and concealing assets. He’s bounced checks and been sued and sued and sued again by employees, vendors, landlords and WGBH television, which won a lawsuit that accused him of misleading consumers by mimicking the television series “Antiques Roadshow” during buying events across the nation typically set up on hotels. At least one legal matter was settled last week, when Parsons signed a divorce agreement with his estranged wife, Jennifer, who had filed for dissolution in 2011.
Sounding frustrated, Mills on Friday said that forcing Parsons to pay up is key but figuring out how to make that happen is a riddle.
“What are we going to do with this guy?” Mills wondered as the hearing drew to a close. “This is an unbelievable amount of money we’re trying to find. So, what is reasonable?”
Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].
