More defendants will be added to school system’s lawsuit, attorney says

Lawyers for the Bibb County school district are drafting an amended complaint in their multimillion-dollar lawsuit against former Superintendent Romain Dallemand, Macon businessman Isaac Culver and others to include three more people and a business, a lawyer said during a Tuesday hearing.

Former Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority Chairman Cliffard Whitby; Whitby Inc.; Culver’s business partner, Dave Carty; and Florida attorney Harold Knowles will be added as defendants to the revised lawsuit, attorney Tom Joyce said.

The draft may also add allegations pertaining to the school district’s Promise Neighborhood plan, Joyce said.

“We are working on it now,” he said, estimating that the final copy could be ready in about 10 days.

The school district filed its initial suit in December against Dallemand; Culver; Culver’s company, Progressive Consulting Technologies Inc.; former school technology director Tom Tourand; Comptech Computer Technologies Inc. and its president and CEO, Allen J. Stephen; and Pinnacle/CSG Inc., and its president, Cory McFarlane. Tourand died in July.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants participated in a series of fraudulent acts, racketeering, wire fraud and mail fraud in a scheme to sell the school district unneeded or nonexistent services and products.

Culver, Carty and their company, Progressive Consulting Technologies Inc., were indicted this summer on fraud charges stemming from the sale of 15,000 NComputing devices — virtual desktops — to the Bibb County school district in 2012. The devices were delivered without key components to make them functional.

In a separate indictment filed earlier this month, Whitby, Knowles, Posiventures Initiative LLC and the Central Georgia Partnership for Individual and Community Development were accused of conspiring to bribe Dallemand.

Dallemand has pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return and could be sentenced this fall.

During Tuesday’s hearing, attorneys for Knowles and Integrated Technology Consulting Inc. contended that the school district’s subpoenas for banking records are overly broad and seek information irrelevant to allegations in the lawsuit.

Knowles, a prominent Tallahassee attorney, is a part owner of Pinnacle.

Brandon Oren, one of the school district’s lawyers, said most of the “damning evidence” in the case has been obtained as a result of subpoenas filed in the lawsuit and criminal cases, uncovering “lies” and “fraud.”

“We want to see it all,” he said, referring specifically to Integrated’s records.

The judge ruled that the subpoenaed records must be designated for attorneys’ eyes only until the school district’s attorneys are able to determine what information is relevant to the case. Copies of irrelevant records must then be destroyed.

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 1:37 PM with the headline "More defendants will be added to school system’s lawsuit, attorney says."