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The Receiver and the Receivership
A Receiver is appointed by the Court to exercise control over the assets specified in the Court’s Order. The Receiver acts for the benefit of the Court that appointed him/her; and takes direction only from the Court.
The Receiver is empowered by the Receivership Order and has authority to engage others to assist him/her in the administration of his Court ordered duties.
The Receiver and his/her agents are compensated solely from the assets of the estate and only after authorized by the Court.
The Receiver’s role is to identify, collect and sell assets to repay the debts, pay out the money collected in the Order required by law, and to coordinate his/her findings with and to report to regulatory authorities any possible offenses or other irregular matters.
The Receiver’s primary duty is to take reasonable care to sell charged property for the best price reasonably obtainable.
If there are insufficient funds to pay all creditors in full, the money from the realization of assets will be remitted in the following priority:
1. Administrative claims. These would be the administrative expenses of the Receiver and his agents.
2. Priority Claims. These would be claims of the taxing authorities, or other claimants ordered by the Court to have obtained this priority.
3. Victim claims. These would be those victims of the fraud to whom the Court has adjudged to have been victimized by the defendants in the case in the amounts approved by the Court.
4. General Creditor. These would be all other debts of the defendant.
All claims of the first class (administrative) must first be satisfied before funds become available to the next claims class (priority). All priority claims are satisfied before funds become available for victim claims and so on. If partial payments are made within the category, they are made pro rata based on the individual claims relationship to the total claims in its category.
If a victim’s claim submission is to take place, each victim will be asked to complete a claim form approved by the Court within a certain time frame.
This claim form will require the victim to indicate the evidence of the funds PROVIDED to the defendants and the funds RECEIVED from the defendants. In summary, this form shows the net of the money received over then money given or lost from his/her dealings with the defendants. Evidence to support each item is required by the Receiver.
Because of the time involved in formulating this process with the Court, the Receiver will NOT commence this process unless he/she feels there will be funds available to distribute to victims, over and above the administrative or priority expenses of the estate.
At this point, the Receiver is in the process of compiling information to determine the distribution of investor funds received. Since accounting records were not available, the Receiver has had to issue judicial subpoenas to the various financial institutions and investment brokerage accounts that the defendants transacted through. The Receiver’s investigation has discovered certain assets and financial enrichments received by relatives and close personal friends; however, before action can take place, additional information is still needed. The premature release of certain information would jeopardize the recovery of these assets.
Certain personal property of the defendants have been secured by the Receiver, some of which the Court has authorized to be liquidated at auction. The auction took place on December 13, 2007 by Arizona Auctioneers. Four vehicles were secured, one of which sold at auction with the other three abandoned to the secured landholder, as there was no equity available to the estate.
Certain secured property is still in the possession of the Receiver (jewelry), which is expected to be liquidated at a future date.
Owen Vilan has been jailed awaiting release on production of a $500,000 bond. Lucy and family have been removed from their residence on Kael. The former residence of the defendants on Evergreen will be abandoned since the lien against it exceeds its current market value. Early indications appear that Kael will end up the same way.
It is clear that Vilan investors will ultimately suffer a significant shortfall on their investment. It is impractical to predict the quantum of the ultimate loss at this stage, as there are so many ongoing investigations which remain to be resolved.
The Receiver understands that there remain many unanswered questions in the minds of the investors. At appropriate times, we will report to the Court our findings on this case and will post these reports for the benefit of the creditors on this website.
Your continued patience and cooperation is appreciated. As always, the receivership staff are available to you via this website. Questions should be ones that CAN be answered without compromising the integrity of the Receiver’s investigations or personnel.
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