Provided via email by Concerned Citizen – Harvey Neese
MAKE IT HAPPEN—ORDERS TO LOWER LEVEL FOREST SERVICE BY CHIEF OF FOREST SERVICE TIDWELL TO TAKE AWAY PEOPLE’S LAND
U.S. FOREST SERVICE CHIEF TIDWELL IS ATTEMPTING TO FORCE SOME 150,000 PEOPLE, DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY PROPOSED FOREST SERVICE LAND TAKEAWAY, TO ACCEPT A TRADE OF 28,000—45,000 ACRES OF PUBLIC FS LANDS FOR SCALPED OVER, STEEP TERRAIN LANDS TO A PRIVATE COMPANY HEADED BY TIM BLIXSETH IN SPITE OF A HUGE MAJORITY IN OPPOSITION. SEE AP ARTICLES BELOW OF THE PROPOSED NEW OWNER OF THOUSANDS OF ACRES OF THE PEOPLE’S LANDS THAT THE FOREST SERVICE CHIEF IS SPEARHEADING :
AP: Montana sends Blixseths $57 million tax bill–Oct 13, 2010
BILLINGS – Montana tax officials say Tim and Edra Blixseth owe the state $57 million in taxes on the money they drained from the Yellowstone Club and on luxury jets, cars and yachts they wrote off as business expenses. With Edra Blixseth bankrupt, state officials have filed a warrant to go after Tim’s assets to cover the $57 million. Payment would go a long way toward easing Montana’s budget woes, with state lawmakers next year due to address a $300-million plus projected budget shortfall. State officials may have to fight for the money, as the club’s creditors are seeking $286 million.
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Resort founder faces criminal probe–Edra Blixseth under scrutiny by the FBI for her activities in connection with Yellowstone Club
By [author]Matthew Brown[/author] Of The [org]Associated Press[/org]
October 11, 2010
BILLINGS, Mont. – Two years after the bankruptcy of Montana’s Yellowstone Club laid bare a massive real estate scheme fueled by greed, fraud and hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-advised loans, criminal investigators are probing the activities of one of the founders of the ultra-exclusive resort.
Authorities would not comment on the case. But sworn depositions and interviews with key parties indicate former club owner Edra Blixseth centers in the federal investigation.
Blixseth’s former bookkeeper has been questioned by the FBI, and her former office manager has hired a prominent Montana criminal defense attorney.
Criminal charges in the case would be another stain on the swank Yellowstone Club, a millionaires-only private ski and golf resort near Yellowstone National Park. The club counts Bill Gates and Dan Quayle among its 300 members, yet spiraled into bankruptcy when the collapse of the real estate market exposed its massive debts.
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Resort founder claims bankruptcy judge is biased
Associated Press, October 12, 2010
BILLINGS, Mont. – Real estate mogul Tim Blixseth is alleging that a judge who issued a $40 million fraud judgment against him is biased and should be removed from the case.
Blixseth is a founder of Montana’s ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club. He made the claim against U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ralph Kirscher in a proposed motion introduced in an appeal of one of the judge’s rulings.
It includes assertions that Kirscher may have hampered a criminal investigation into Blixseth’s ex-wife, and that Blixseth was denied his rights of due process.
Bankruptcy Clerk Bernard McCarthy said Monday it would be inappropriate for the judge to respond.
Kirscher has blamed Blixseth for the Yellowstone Club’s 2008 bankruptcy. Last month, the former resort owner was ordered to pay $40 million to the club’s creditors.
But Blixseth said $22 million of that judgment was subject to unresolved legal challenges, denying his right to a fair trial.
“I have not gotten a fair shake,” he said. “On the $22 million, (Kirscher) just abandons the trial, basically does an award without ever hearing the evidence. That’s bizarre in American juris prudence.”
Blixseth added that the judge’s repeated statements in defense of his ex-wife, Edra Blixseth, appeared to be an effort to “quash” a pending FBI investigation into her financial dealings.
The proposed motion was filed as an exhibit in Blixseth’s appeal of the $40 million judgment. Attorneys for the club’s creditors have asked for the case to be heard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Blixseth’s attorneys said when that appeal is accepted, they will file the motion for Kirscher’s removal or for the case to be reassigned.
Tim Blixseth turned over the Yellowstone Club to Edra Blixseth during their divorce. Months later it was
revealed to be hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
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Lewiston Tribune, Sunday, July 31, 2011
© 2011 The Associated Press.
Yellowstone Club founder looks for way out of paying on $40 million judgment
By Matthew Brown of the Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. – Two years after Montana’s ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club was sold to new owners through a bankruptcy court, resort founder Tim Blixseth is waging an aggressive legal campaign to unravel the sale in hopes of canceling out a $40 million fraud judgment against him.
But first the jet-setting real estate mogul has to make it past U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ralph Kirscher. The Butte judge has consistently ruled against Blixseth, blaming him for much of the ski and golf resort’s financial troubles.
Already Kirscher has shot down one of Blixseth’s main arguments in the case – that the club’s original bankruptcy filing in 2008 was made in bad faith as part of a plot by his ex-wife, Edra, to take over the club and sell it for cheap to alleged co-conspirator Sam Byrne, a Boston real estate investor.
Blixseth’s attorneys argue that because the club’s 2009 sale was tainted, Kirscher’s subsequent civil fraud judgment against Blixseth should be wiped out because it never would have happened without the sale.
Even if Blixseth loses this round, the dispute is likely to drag on. He still has two outstanding claims before Kirscher and has pledged to appeal the one he lost.
Through Moore, the club declined comment on its financial status. But a deposition earlier this month taken of CrossHarbor’s Matthew Kidd, a principal at the firm, revealed that the club continues to lose money.
© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Blixseth seeks judge’s ouster in bankruptcy case
Blixseth seeks judge’s ouster in bankruptcy case Associated Press Nov. 23, 2010
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – Real estate mogul Tim Blixseth is acting as his own attorney as he seeks to disqualify a bankruptcy judge who slapped the former billionaire with a $40 million fraud judgment.
Blixseth founded Montana’s Yellowstone Club, a millionaires-only resort that counts former Vice President Dan Quayle and Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt among its members. The ski and golf club fell into banbkruptcy two years ago after Blixseth diverted hundreds of millions of dollars for his own use.
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Judge rejects effort to undo pending sale of Yellowstone Club
Great Falls Tribune Oct 2, 2011
HELENA (AP) — In the latest setback against Yellowstone Club co-founder Tim Blixseth, a federal bankruptcy judge has rejected an effort by Blixseth to unravel the sale of the exclusive club to new owners and overturn a $40 million fraud judgment against him. Blixseth filed an appeal with U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon arguing that the club’s original bankruptcy filing was made in bad faith, that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ralph Kirscher approved the settlement without appropriate notice and that it wrongly exempted Credit Suisse and others from liability.
Last November, Haddon sent the case to Kirscher to address the notice and liability exemption issues.Kirscher’s ruling, filed Friday, listed the court orders that gave notice of the July settlement approval hearing. He also wrote that Credit Suisse, buyer CrossHarbor Capital Partners and others are only exempted from liability for actions connected to the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case and nothing before it was filed in November 2008.
Blixseth asserted Sunday that Haddon sent the case back to Kirscher for reversal of the bankruptcy.”Judge Kirscher ignored and failed to follow judge Haddon’s remand and reversal of the Yellowstone Club bankruptcy and we will be seeking a writ of mandate to compel judge Kirscher to obey judge Haddon,” Blixseth wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
In 2005, Credit Suisse made a $385 million loan to the club, most of which was diverted to Tim and Edra Blixseth’s personal use. A civil fraud case over the diversion was the foundation of the judgment against Blixseth.
Blixseth filed a lawsuit in June arguing that he was betrayed by his former attorney Stephen Brown of Missoula in the civil fraud case. The lawsuit alleges Brown signed off on the Credit Suisse loan as legitimate and later served as chairman of the unsecured creditors committee that filed the complaint over the $286 million.”While the Court cannot anticipate every claim Blixseth may have against the parties involved in this case, the specific claims discussed during testimony are outside the scope of the release provision at issue,” Kirscher wrote.
“For instance, any claim Blixseth may have stemming from Brown’s advice with respect to Blixseth’s marital settlement agreement or the Credit Suisse loan transaction is clearly outside the scope of exculpation clause,” he wrote.
Kirscher has already ruled that the bankruptcy settlement was negotiated in good faith.
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Ex-billionaire Blixseth to seek sanctions against Montana
By MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press May 18, 2011
Former billionaire Tim Blixseth said he willpursue court sanctions against the Montana Department of Revenue after a federal judge tossed a bankruptcy petition the state filed against him seeking $57 million in alleged unpaid taxes.
Former billionaire Tim Blixseth said he will pursue court sanctions against the Montana Department of Revenue after a federal judge tossed a bankruptcy petition the state filed against him seeking $57 million in alleged unpaid taxes. Former billionaire Tim Blixseth said he will pursue court sanctions against the Montana Department of Revenue after a federal judge tossed a bankruptcy petition the state filed against him seeking $57 million in alleged unpaid taxes.
The petition could have forced the founder of Montana’s ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club to liquidate his assets if it had been successful. But the case was dismissed Wednesday by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Bruce Markell in Nevada because Blixseth has no assets in the state, his attorneys said. “They took a shot at me and it was a bad-faith bankruptcy filing,” Blixseth said. “We are going to depose everyone in the food chain that filed this.”
He added that the petition was a “desperate move” to derail pending litigation related to the Yellowstone Club’s 2008 bankruptcy and a separate lawsuit Blixseth is pursuing against Credit Suisse. The latter case involves a $375 million loan the banking industry giant made to the club in 2005.
Representatives for the Montana Department of Revenue did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment. Blixseth, 60, is a resident of Washington state. Last month, he paid $1.9 million in back taxes to California and Idaho to get them to withdraw as co-plaintiffs with Montana in the forced bankruptcy petition. As a condition of those settlements, Blixseth agreed not to seek sanctions against authorities in the two states. California and Idaho went after Blixseth in Nevada because he put most of his assets into a family trust registered in that state several years ago.
Forbes once pegged Tim Blixseth’s net worth at $1.3 billion. Court documents recently put the figure at roughly $230 million.
He still faces a $40 million civil judgment handed down last year by federal bankruptcy judge in Montana over claims related to the Yellowstone Club’s 2008 bankruptcy. That order is on appeal.
Authorities and creditors claimed he drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the Yellowstone Club, leading to its bankruptcy. The club has since emerged from bankruptcy under new owners.
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"We had to bomb and raze that city in order to save it."
–General Westmoreland, Vietnam War, 1967
"We have to trade USFS land to Blixeth in order to save it."
–Skip Brandt, Idaho County War, 2011
Brandt has gone on record as stating that the proposed exchange of our public lands is a good idea because it will preserve access roads and grazing, which can be closed and eliminated by the USFS. He seems to forget that the land itself at the edge of the easement will be a no trespassing zone. And there is no way that perpetual grazing rights will be granted by Blixeth. Wake up. Brandt apparently believes we should trust Blixeth rather than the USFS.
I am one of two land owners who would be completely surrounded by private land if this goes through. I paid 20,000 an acre to be surrounded by forest service land. I built my cabin and spend more than half the year up there(Earthquake Meadow).I have a street address there, too. Now, I may not be able to even access it. If this goes through, I will file civil suits against everyone involved. Im not rich, I spent all my money, buying that land and building my cabin. Please do all you can to stop this land grab, by a company that doesn't pay their taxes and get richer by screwing the tax paying public out of their land.
How much less than was owed was "settled" for by the states of Idaho and California in the payment of the past due income tax burden? What is WPT property tax payment history in Idaho and Clearwater Counties? How about their property tax history in the 13 counties in WA where they received land in the Central Cascade Land Exchange? How will "settling" for a payment from Blixseth and Hawes with the Island Government of the Turks/Caicos effect the charges of tax fraud against them? Who will repay the $8million worth of defaulted timber contracts with the Forest Service from Blixseth's earlier companies? Who will "unbuild" the mountaintop in the Gallatin that is The Yellowstone Club? Will the EPA fine him again for degrading watersheds? ETC