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News Release
Labor Department Settles Lawsuit With Sutersville, Pennsylvania Employee Benefit Plan Officials
Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - The U.S. Department of Labor obtained a consent order with the trustees of the Sutersville Lumber Company employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), providing for restoration of $216,820 to the plan and appointment of an independent fiduciary to replace the fiduciaries.
Under the court order, David M. Lipkin was appointed as the independent fiduciary to manage the plan. The defendants agreed to pay civil penalties for violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). In addition, the trustees are permanently barred from serving any plan governed by ERISA and will not receive any benefits from the plan.
The Labor Department sued plan fiduciaries Jay Miller, Richard Nesbit and Rona Nesbit and Radnor Capitol Management, Inc. for improperly transferring more than $500,000 in profit sharing plan assets to pay off the ESOP loan, which was guaranteed by Sutersville Lumber.
The family-owned lumber yard and home improvement center was liquidated in 1997. The company sponsored a profit sharing plan and an employee stock ownership plan for its employees. These plans were later merged, with $3,096,814 in assets.
The consent order, entered on October 15, 2002 in federal district court in Pittsburgh, resulted from an investigation conducted by the Philadelphia Regional Office of the department’s Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration.
(Chao v. Miller
Civil Action No. 99-404)
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Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.