The five-day trial brought against Columbus businessman Donald DePriest by former associate Oliver Phillips concluded Friday, with Lowndes County Chancery Judge Kenneth Burns urging the parties to “try to settle” the case and giving attorneys with both parties 30 days to submit summary briefs before his ruling on the matter.
“These lawyers are some of the best I”ve ever had,” Burns said, complimenting Phillips” team of attorneys from the Columbus firm of Nichols, Crowell, Gillis, Cooper and Amos, as well as DePriest”s attorneys, led by Ernest Taylor from the Jackson office of Balch and Bingham. “You just did a tremendous job.”
A former senior partner with T.E. Lott & Co., who also served as DePriest”s accountant for nearly 30 years, Phillips, who co-owns Plantation Pointe Retirement Community, sued DePriest for about $10 million.
DePriest countersued, claiming Phillips” case is not valid.
Phillips said he and Chuck Cooper, a former WCBI-TV station manager, who ran a Starkville-based radio station owned by DePriest, helped DePriest create Charisma Communications, a company based on cellular technology.
At the center of the trial was a 1984 document Phillips claimed entitled him to 10 percent of anything DePriest received from the operations of or sale of Charisma, which was sold, in 1986, to McCaw Cellular for $85 million. DePriest received about $31 million from the sale.
Phillips Tuesday testified DePriest paid him about $1 million in 1986, but Phillips again presented DePriest with the 1984 agreement in April of 1996, after a lawsuit over the sale of Charisma to McCaw Cellular was settled for $100 million, $84 million of which was distributed to Charisma stockholders.
“He didn”t like it, but after I produced the document, he accepted it,” Phillips Tuesday said of DePriest, who, he said, paid him $5 million in April 1996 and issued a promissory note for another $5 million to be paid by Dec. 31, 1996.
DePriest Thursday testified the note referred to the $5 million he paid Phillips in April 1996, not to an additional $5 million.
Also, DePriest said he thought the $5 million paid was to settle all claims.
“This was to have been an alternative transaction,” he said of the promissory note. “I ended up giving him a $5 million check for a release (from other financial obligations).”
Phillips said he made more than 100 loans — totaling about $13 million — to DePriest from “1990 to the present.”
But, in his lawsuit, he only asked for claims based on the 1996 settlement agreement, he added.
DePriest recently resigned from the Tennessee Valley Authority after it was revealed the Internal Revenue Service had placed a lien against him for $1.1 million in unpaid employment taxes.
DePriest also is being sued for millions by several others who claim unpaid loans.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.