By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER
BEDFORD COUNTY — In a newly filed declaration and legal response, the leadership of Uncle Nearest, Inc. is pushing back hard against the emergency motion that seeks to appoint a receiver to take control of the company’s operations.
As you may recall, on Monday, a bombshell rippled through Bedford County when public documents revealed that Farm Credit Mid-America filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Uncle Nearest, Inc., Nearest Green Distillery, Inc., Uncle Nearest Real Estate Holdings, LLC, as well as Fawn Weaver and Keith Weaver personally for alleged breach of contract. In a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Times, the creditor accuses Uncle Nearest et all of defaulting on over $100 million dollars in loans that originated in 2022. {To read our original coverage of that suit, click here.}
In that suit, Farm Credit alleged, among other things that Uncle Nearest et all overstated the company’s whiskey barrel inventory and failed to make principal and interest payments multiple times. The original suit also characterized the purchase of an over $2 million home of Martha’s Vineyard as as both deceptive and a misuse of company funds.
Former CFO responsible for whiskey barrel reporting, Weavers say
Two new documents obtained by The Times on Sunday, and filed in the Eastern District of Tennessee on Saturday, assert that a now-terminated Chief Financial Officer Michael Senzaki acted alone in significantly overstating the company’s whiskey barrel inventory – an act that allegedly secured a $24 million credit increase from Farm Credit Mid-America, the plaintiff in the civil lawsuit. The filings describe the move as fraudulent and emphasize that neither CEO Fawn Weaver nor other executives had knowledge of the inflated numbers.
In the declaration, Fawn Weaver states under oath that the former CFO was the sole point of contact responsible for inventory reporting and for signing off on all funding requests tied to those barrels. She says the discrepancy only came to light when updated and verifiable inventory reports were submitted in early 2024 – months before Farm Credit filed suit. Uncle Nearest has since launched an internal investigation and is reportedly weighing legal action against the former CFO.
But the defense didn’t stop there.
In a pointed rebuttal to the lender’s characterization of a Martha’s Vineyard property purchase – described in the original complaint as both deceptive and a misuse of company funds – Uncle Nearest submitted a trove of internal emails between Senzaki and Farm Credit’s Jonathan Boyce and Brian Klatt as well as travel records that suggest otherwise.
According to the declaration, Farm Credit executives were not only aware of the property but also attended an inaugural Gospel Brunch event at the home, stayed in the area at company-funded rentals, and even reserved bicycles for recreational use during their visit. One internal email details a social itinerary, while another jokes about a missed opportunity to snag a pair of Air Force Ones for the trip.
“These were not covert maneuvers,” the company argues in its legal filing. “Plaintiff’s employees and agents were actively involved in – and frankly acquiesced to – the exact circumstances that it is now claiming somehow support a receivership.”
The documents further assert that Uncle Nearest continued to make significant payments to Farm Credit – including $9 million in 2024 and a lump sum of $7.5 million earlier this year – and only paused payments temporarily under the guidance of a third-party advisory firm that both sides approved.
For now, Uncle Nearest maintains that the lawsuit stems from a technical default caused by a single bad actor, and not any bad faith or financial mismanagement by its leadership team.
The court is set to hear arguments on the receivership motion this Wednesday, August 7 in a Knoxville District Court.
This is an ongoing story that The Lynchburg Times will continue to follow closely. •
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