Chris Kenning, Louisville Courier Journal
Published
1:15 pm UTC Mar. 1, 2021
LAKEVILLE, Ky. Year after year, Larry Flynt’s private Lear jet would streak through the sky to land at a remote Appalachian airfield, his bodyguards pushing him in his gold-plated wheelchair to a waiting car.
The poor little pornographer from Eastern Kentucky,” as he once called himself, would wind his way through the two-lane roads of Magoffin County toward a one-story home in Lakeville, a Bible Belt hamlet on Kentucky s Licking River, where Flynt grew up as the son of a tobacco farmer and bootlegger.
It was about as far away as the Hustler porn mogul could get from Beverly Hills and his roller-coaster legal and personal dramas after he’d become the often-reviled but self-described King of Smut.
Next month, about 600 employees suddenly laid off in July 2019 at two Campbell County coal mines formerly owned by Blackjewel, LLC, plus about 1,100 of the company s employees in central Appalachia will learn about the fate of a proposed settlement of a federal lawsuit.
On March 3, the judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of West Virginia will decide whether to approve a settlement of a class action lawsuit, said Ned Pillersdorf of Prestonsburg, Ky., who was among the attorneys for the employees in the lawsuit.
The proposed settlement was tentatively reached in March 2020, but sealed until Sept. 1.
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An eastern Kentucky attorney who admitted to defrauding the government of more than $600 million in social security disability benefits is being sued by a former client in a case that seeks to overturn hundreds of small-claims lawsuit judgments.
The client, James K. Gillman, said he didn’t even know until recently that his disgraced former attorney Eric C. Conn had sued him in 2004 and obtained a judgment against him.
Gillman is serving a two-year jail sentence for violating probation on charges that included wanton endangerment and fleeing police. He fears that the judgment Conn obtained against him could hurt his chance of being released from jail on parole, his attorney, Ned Pillersdorf, told the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Former client sues lawyer convicted of massive fraud scheme sfgate.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sfgate.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Matt Hepler and Molly Moore
UPDATE, Jan. 11, 2020:
Following multiple objections to Blackjewel’s proposed Chapter 11 plan, Blackjewel filed an amended plan the morning of the December 17 hearing, striking the use of a reclamation trust. During the hearing, Judge Benjamin Kahn denied former Blackjewel CEO Jeff Hoops’ petition to move the bankruptcy proceeding from a Chapter 11 reorganization plan to a Chapter 7 liquidation plan, but did not rule on the proposed Chapter 11 plan, given the last-minute changes.
Blackjewel stated in a Dec. 23 filing that it was seeking to abandon all of its unsold coal permits, though exactly which permits remain unsold and untransferred remains unclear. Judge Kahn will again take up the issues of permit abandonment and the general bankruptcy plan during the January 15 court hearing.