Joining Lieff Cabraser in filing the case were the firms of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, and CaseyGerry.
Winser and Claridge, who live in Goochland County, Virginia, believe they own shares of three LeFever Mattson limited partnerships — Golden Tree, Treehouse Investments and Windtree — as outlined in the class action. All of those companies were connected to real estate purchases.
After signing one of the three partnership agreements via electronic signature, Winser said, the couple never received a fully executed agreement.
LeFever has pointed the finger at Mattson for such irregularities, alleging that his former partner handled all of the investment bookkeeping.
“His documentation was nothing more than a second set of books that he used to convince IRA custodians that his activities were legitimate,” LeFever stated in his June 6 lawsuit against Mattson.
The lack of oversight baffles Claridge.
“Businesses will often put checks and balances in place to ensure there is no wrongdoing,” he said. “Multiple officers have to sign a check, that sort of thing.”
That doesn’t seem to have been the protocol at LeFever Mattson.
Shortly after the dissolution of the partnership, Claridge and Winser called Mattson to express concerns that some of the partnership documents they possessed were “incomplete or outdated or erroneous,” as Claridge put it. The couple asked for a clear explanation of which funds were associated with which properties — and they wanted assurance the documents they had were valid.
“How soon can we get that?” Claridge recalled asking Mattson.
“It will take a couple of years,” Mattson replied.
The LeFever Mattson real estate deals got less transparent over time, too. In the company’s early years, they bought properties through “tenants in common” agreements. The deeds of those properties show the name of every investor, along with ownership percentages.
At some point, Mattson and LeFever began establishing subsidiary companies to buy small sets of properties. Those deeds tend to attribute ownership to LeFever Mattson, KS Mattson Properties and/or the limited partnership or LLC set up for the purpose — with no individual investors named, making it hard to discern who owns shares in that real estate. The Sonoma purchases fall into this pattern.
“We can’t get information from Tim — he disavows any knowledge of our investments,” Winser said. “But two of the three (partnerships) list LeFever Mattson as general partner, and Tim as registered agent, and his business address as the address of record.”
There are also conflicting characterizations of a bank account — originally at Bank of the West, before it was acquired by Bank of Montreal — that had been paying distributions to investors of Divi Divi Tree LP, an IRA investment fund that emerged as a focal point in the LeFever Mattson breakup. Some of those involved, however, have begun to doubt whether those payments were truly based on investment distributions.
LeFever refers to it as “the Covert Account” in his lawsuit, insisting only Mattson had access to it. In the complaint, LeFever claims Mattson transferred at least $75 million to the account from sales of assets, and spent it “for his own personal benefit.”
The class action suit against both partners frames it quite differently.
“LeFever’s declaration filed in (a related lawsuit) acknowledges that he had signing authority on the Bank of the West account and in some instances signed checks from the account,” it says.
As investors have fretted in solitude, banded together in email groups and, finally, turned to legal action, their anger and confusion have been amplified by the lack of communication coming from the two men at the center of the storm.
When LeFever first divulged the fraud he attributes to his former partner, in a May 9 email directed to Divi Divi Tree LP investors, he included an email address set up to link aggrieved parties with the LeFever Mattson legal team.
Claridge and Winser immediately fired off an email to that account. It took more than two months to get a written response to questions about their partnerships.
Claridge also had phoned the LeFever Mattson company in May, twice leaving separate voicemails on five different extensions in the office. The first call back he received, more than two weeks later, was from a human resources representative. She patiently searched the company database for ownership records related to the three partnerships the Virginia couple had invested in, and informed them they were nowhere to be found.
They are not alone. Todd and Lori Michero, Divi Divi investors who live in Eagle River, Alaska, contacted LeFever Mattson to inquire about their accounts in May, according to the class action suit.
“The Michero Plaintiffs were told by an employee of LeFever that they had to prove their investment had been in connection with LeFever and LeFever Mattson, not just Mattson individually,” the complaint states. “The Michero Plaintiffs provided LeFever’s employee with such information, including a loan document signed by LeFever himself. Neither LeFever nor LeFever Mattson have responded to the Michero Plaintiffs.”
Mattson, for his part, was communicating frequently with individual investors in April and May. But that interaction has largely dried up by now. He did reach out to Claridge and Winser just before the class action was filed, promising to send the money they were owed within a week. It has yet to arrive.
“One of our great frustrations has been opacity,” Winser said. “Our main contact is Ken, and he’s pretty opaque. We’ve never met him. He never provides any documentation or evidence, except the initial partnership agreements.
“It’s always just, ‘Your investments are safe, they’re doing well.’”
You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @Skinny_Post.
