Mediation try fails in Bibb schools lawsuit to recoup millions
Mediation efforts have failed in the Bibb County school system's lawsuit that seeks to recover about $9 million that it claims it is due from tech companies and others in business dealings.
The private mediation gathering at a downtown Macon office ended without an agreement, according to court filings Friday.
Among those named in the school system's suit are: former Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority Chairman Cliffard Whitby, former school Superintendent Romain Dallemand; Florida attorney Harold Knowles and Macon businessman Dave Carty; Progressive Property Management LLC; the Central Georgia Partnership for Individual and Community Development; Positiventures Initiative; Whitby Inc.; Integrated Technologies Consulting; and the Florida-based Knowles and Randolph P.A. law firm, for which Knowles is a managing partner; Dave Carty’s business partner, Isaac Culver; Culver and Carty’s company, Progressive Consulting Technologies Inc.; Comptech Computer Technologies Inc. and its president and CEO, Allen J. Stephen; and Pinnacle/CSG Inc. and its president, Cory McFarlane.
The case also involves allegations of money laundering and misconduct pertaining to the Macon Promise Neighborhood initiative. It also says that some of the defendants, as recently as May 2017, took steps to create software that could be passed off as the system for which the school district paid $3.2 million in 2012.
The school district alleges that it paid the money for Proscenium software it never received and that the district contends the Tallahassee, Florida, construction company didn’t have the capability to produce.
Earlier this week, Pinnacle and McFarlane, its CEO, filed a $50 million counterclaim in U.S. District Court against the Bibb school system, school Superintendent Curtis Jones and several former and current school board members. On Friday, individual board members were dropped from that complaint.
This story was originally published January 19, 2018 at 1:05 PM.