Sun. Feb 23rd, 2025

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin greets Big Country Chateau tenants (L-R) Clara Edmonston, Delores McDaniel and Jay Richard at a Jan. 26, 2023, tenants' rally in front of Little Rock City Hall. (Photo by Sonny Albarado)

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin greets Big Country Chateau tenants (left to right) Clara Edmonston, Delores McDaniel and Jay Richard at a Jan. 26, 2023, tenants’ rally in front of Little Rock City Hall. (Sonny Albarado/Arkansas Advocate)

An Arkansas circuit court judge this month ordered the former owners of a now-closed Little Rock apartment complex to pay the state $11,236,000 for violations of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

The judge also revoked the Arkansas business license of Apex Big Chateau AR LLC, “which is the only current Arkansas business license held by Big Country Chateau’s former owners,” Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a press release

“This ensures they cannot prey on more innocent Arkansans with their deceptive and neglectful business practices,” the attorney general said.

“Big Country Chateau’s owners had charged utility fees to their tenants and then withheld payment to utility companies, thereby putting tenants at risk of having their utilities shut off. Our lawsuit also included their practice of knowingly renting units with code enforcement violations,” Griffin said.

Griffin’s office inherited the lawsuit in 2023 from his predecessor Leslie Rutledge, who is now lieutenant governor. Rutledge filed the deceptive trade practices complaint in 2022 against Big Country Chateau, located on Colonel Glenn Road; its parent company, Apex Big Chateau AR, and its New Jersey-based holding company, Apex Equity Group, after the first nonpayment of utility bills.

Last August, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Cara Connors entered a default judgment against the defendants after no one showed up for a scheduled hearing to represent them. The judge had previously held them in contempt nearly a year before and ordered fines of $1,000 a day for not providing the court with requested documents.

Her order granting final relief to the state, issued Feb. 6, said Big Country Chateau’s owners “committed violations against consumers in 151 units for 33 months, totaling 4,983 instances” in which they accepted payments from tenants and failed to pay the utility bills.

The court order also cited 127 violations of the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, making a total of 5,110 violations.

Connors had frozen the defendants’ assets in February 2023 when she appointed a receiver to proceed with foreclosure on the apartment complex. Her order this month releases those assets to the state “up to  and including the amount of the civil penalties awarded by this Court.”

Assistant Attorney General Amanda Wentz led the state’s pursuit of the case.

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