Austin-based Clark, Thomas & Winters has agreed to pay Pedernales Electric Cooperative $4.1 million to settle an unusual billing dispute. The dispute centers on about $510,000 for which Clark, Thomas had billed the PEC between 1998 and 2003 and in December 2004, according to a Dec.15, 2008, report by Navigant Consulting of Austin following its forensic investigation of various allegations of corporate abuses and wrongdoing at the PEC. As noted in Navigant’s report, Clark, Thomas then paid the money that the firm received from the PEC to two outside consultants related to two PEC officials. Jimmy Williamson (pictured), the PEC’s attorney, says the PEC agreed to the Navigant investigation as part of a settlement of a class action suit -- Worrall, et al. v. Pedernales Electric Cooperative -- that members of the cooperative had filed against the PEC, its board and management in 2007 in a Travis County district court. Clark, Thomas and the PEC announced their settlement of the billing dispute on June 18. Martha Dickie, who represents Clark, Thomas, says the firm and the PEC reached an agreement following a mediation that began in April. Dickie, a partner in Austin’s Akin & Almanza, says Clark, Thomas’ “whole interest here was to do right by a client, and I’m convinced they did that and more.” Williamson, principal in Houston’s Williamson & Rusnak, says, “If they had not reached a settlement with us, we would have definitely filed suit and pursued our legal remedies.” The firm and the cooperative announced the settlement the day after a Blanco County grand jury handed up indictments against Bennie Fuelberg, the PEC’s former general manager, and Walter Demond, a former Clark, Thomas shareholder who had been the PEC’s outside counsel. According to a June 18 online article published by the Austin American-Statesman, the grand jury charged Fuelberg and Demond with misapplication of fiduciary duty in excess of $200,000, theft of property in excess of $200,000 and money laundering between $100,000 and $200,000. Chris Gunter, an attorney with Austin’s Gunter & Bennett who represents Fuelberg, did not immediately return a telephone call for comment. Austin solo E.G. “Gerry” Morris, Demond’s attorney, says, “Anyone who knows Walter Demond knows he’s never taken a nickel he didn’t earn and never given anybody any client’s money that wasn’t entitled to it.”
UPDATE: Chris Gunter, attorney for Bennie Fuelberg, PEC’s indicted former general manager, just returned my telephone call. Gunter, a partner in Austin’s Gunter & Bennett, says the allegations in the indictment against Fuelberg are not true. “He did not commit a crime as alleged,” Gunter says. Gunter says that for the past two years, Fuelberg has endured innuendoes and suggestions that he was involved in wrongdoing. “We’re happy that we’re going to have an opportunity to see this supposed evidence and we’re going to respond to it.”
-- Mary Alice Robbins
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