Published on HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com (http://hamptonroads.com)
Assets in WexTrust office sold for cash
NORFOLK
The computers and phones are gone. So are the two safes, the six large flat-screen televisions and a treadmill.
A weeklong sale of the contents of WexTrust Capital's office in Dominion Tower raised about $35,000, the court-appointed receiver for WexTrust said Friday. Some remaining items, including furniture and electronic equipment, will be sold at auction in the next 30 to 60 days, said the receiver, Timothy Coleman.
Coleman was put in charge of WexTrust's assets immediately after the investment company and two of its owners were charged in August with securities fraud. In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the Securities and Exchange Commission contended that Joseph Shereshevsky of Norfolk, Steven Byers of Oak Brook, Ill., and their Chicago-based company bilked almost 1,200 investors by diverting $100 million of funds to unauthorized uses.
Shereshevsky had been WexTrust's chief operating officer and head of its Norfolk office. Byers was its chairman and chief executive.
Coleman said he donated some WexTrust items of minimal value to a school and to charities.
Office supplies were donated to the Toras Chaim School in Portsmouth, and kitchen supplies were given to the House of Hope, a nonprofit organization for troubled teenagers, he said in an e-mail. Office supplies, books and WexTrust promotional items, including duffle bags, mugs and glassware, were given to The Salvation Army.
WexTrust books, records and documents that he recovered from the local office will be stored for use in legal proceedings involving WexTrust, said Coleman, a partner in the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.
The New York-based firm is advising him on finding, safeguarding and disposing of WexTrust's assets.
Coleman also said Friday that he resolved a dispute with the owners of Dominion Tower over unpaid rent for WexTrust's 22nd-floor offices. In a letter to the federal court in Manhattan earlier this year, the building owners said they notified WexTrust in August that its lease was in default and forwarded a copy of its notice to the receiver but had not yet been paid.