Turns out, Jimmy Gierczyk has cash-flow problems west of the Mississippi too.

Gierczyk, among other things, is the principal in Sand Creek CC Real Estate LLC, current owner of the Sand Creek Country Club, against which the Lake Erie Land Company (LEL) has filed a foreclosure suit.

He’s also the principal in Chesterton Development Partners LLC, owner of various acreage in Coffee Creek Center and the Estates of Sand Creek, against which an Illinois bank has filed a foreclosure suit.

Gierczyk’s been sued by a number of creditors. He’s even been sued by his own lawyers, who allege that he refused to pay more than $250,000 in legal fees.

Now Gierczyk’s being sued by one of his partners, Charles Anzilotti, who in a Maricopa County, Ariz., case is claiming that Giercyzk misappropriated the whole of a $1.4 million earnest deposit made to their development company, half of which Anzilotti says was owed to him.

That misappropriation—what the document calls “unauthorized self-dealings”—led to their company’s defaulting on $4.1 million bank loan, according to Anzilotti’s suit.

In the meantime, that bank has filed its own suit against Giercyzk and Anzilotti’s company.

The saliencies of Anzilotti’s suit, filed on April 1:

•In December 2000 Suerte Property LLC was formed for the purpose of developing property in Maricopa County. In February 2002 Anzilotti became a member of Suerte.

•Between October 2006 and January 2007, the suit alleges, Gierczyk received a total of $1.4 million from Joe Gagliano and Tony Burgi as an earnest deposit for the purchase of Suerte’s property.

•But “unbeknownst “ to Anzilotti, the suit alleges, Gierczyk “transferred to himself, or to affiliated businesses and/or entities controlled by him, or to third parties, including family members and friends, the entire $1.4 million.”

•When Anzilotti learned of Gierczyk’s receipt of the earnest deposit and asked to see the company’s books, the suit alleges, Gierczyk “failed” to make those books available to him.

•Meanwhile, in January 2008, Home National Bank made a loan of $4,122,398 to Suerte, for which Anzilotti as a member of the company was required to make a personal guarantee.

•Following that loan, the suit alleges, Gierczyk “made repeated requests for disbursements” from Home National Bank but “failed to provide (Anzilotti) with any information as to the amount of those disbursements, the purpose for which the disbursements were requested, and the distribution of those disbursements.”

•And as “a direct and proximate result” of Gierczyk’s “unauthorized self-dealings, including the conversion and disbursement of the earnest deposit, Suerte defaulted” on the bank loan, the suit alleges.

The eight-count suit accuses Gierczyk, among other things, of breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, conversion, and fraudulent transfer, and is seeking an award of $700,000—half of the earnest deposit—plus interest and damages.

Anzilotti has “sustained damages for loss of credit reputation, humiliation, anxiety, worry, and inconvenience,” the suit adds.

For its part, Home National Bank filed suit against Suerte, Gierczyk, and Anzilotti on April 12, seeking an award of $1,522,444.59, which according to the document is the amount still owed to the bank—or the “deficiency”—following the foreclosure and sale of the property which secured the $4,122,398 loan.

•Gierczyk, through his Sand Creek CC Real Estate LLC, owes the LEL a total of $12,132,500, after defaulting on a promissory note in the principal amount of $11.5 million, secured by a mortgage against Sand Creek Country Club, a suit filed last month by LEL alleges.

•Giercyzk, through his Chesterton Development Partners LLC, owes about the same to Old Second National Bank of Chicago Heights, Ill., after defaulting on an $11.9 million loan secured by 42 acres in Coffee Creek Center and 18 lots in the Estates of Sand Creek, a suit filed in May by the bank alleges.

•Gierczyk, through four other LLCs, owed in excess of $22.5 million to the First Bank and Trust Company of Palatine, Ill., after defaulting on loans totaling $31.6 million, according to a suit filed by the bank. A separate suit filed by First Bank and Trust accuses Gierczyk of transferring assets to his wife with “intent to hinder, delay, or defraud his creditors.”

•Gierczyk’s own legal firm sued him in an attempt to recover more than $250,000 in legal fees and litigation expenses which it claims Gierczyk refused to pay.

•And Crane’s reported in April that Wheatland Bank of Naperville, Ill., has filed foreclosure suits on three of Gierczyk’s suburban strip-mall developments in that state.

Posted 7/2/2010