AUBURN – The city of Lewiston is suing for repayment of a loan from five founding members of the now-defunct Creative Photographic Arts Center of Maine.
A lawsuit filed Thursday in Androscoggin County Superior Court seeks $254,579.04, which includes the original loan of $128,000, plus 5 percent annual interest and penalties.
The city made the loan to the nonprofit organization in 1994 to help open the school in one of the Bates Mill buildings.
The city’s lawyer, Kevin Beal, said Friday that none of the defendants had paid back any of the money. The city served a notice of default on the loan a year ago.
The beleaguered school closed in 2004 after the city shut it down for nonpayment of $32,000 in rent. The school had been chronically late with rent payments and fell ever deeper into financial ruin.
One of the defendants named in the suit, Christopher N.B. Chase of Litchfield, said Friday he resigned from the board in 1995 before the school ever opened.
He and at least two others named in the suit left, in part, because one of the school’s founders, J. Michael Patry, was taking over its operation, Chase said. With that transfer, Chase said he understood Patry had assumed liability for the loan. A city official had told him so, Chase said.
He has heard nothing about the loan since he left.
“I had absolutely no idea what was going on,” he said. “There’s no way I can pay that. That’s not even my loan.”
Beal said Chase and the four other defendants had signed a guarantee of payment.
Even if they weren’t responsible for paying off the loan, they were ultimately legally responsible for seeing the money was paid back, he said.
Also named in the suit were Marilyn R. Burnell of Mechanic Falls; J. David Hathaway of Portland; Eric Stickler (no address listed) and Michael R. Labrecque of Auburn.
Attempts to reach the other codefendants were unsuccessful. There is no locally listed phone number for J. Michael Patry.
Beal said the city sought to sue Patry, who also had signed as a loan guarantor, but federal court blocked its efforts because Patry had declared bankruptcy before the suit was filed.
About 120 University of Maine at Augusta students attended classes at the school when it closed abruptly two years ago. The school had sought a $789,000 business development loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2002 to move its operations from the mill and into a building on Lisbon Street.
But that agency said it would only consider making the loan if the city forgave the $128,000 loan plus another for $148,000. School officials ended up withdrawing the application.
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