Professional fees for one segment of the Prosser bankruptcy case have exceeded $35 million, and U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Judith Fitzgerald has started the process of appointing a fee auditor to help her manage costs.
It will be a complex business. Fitzgerald issued an order on March 9 indicating the need for such an individual; she invited the various participants to nominate candidates for the position.
The names will then go to the U.S. Trustee, an arm of the U.S. Justice Department, which will screen and evaluate the names submitted. After receiving the trustee’s report, Fitzgerald will then make an appointment.
Fitzgerald will not, however, know which of the parties have nominated the candidates for the position.
The fees concerned are those paid to and through the managers of the bankrupt estates, one involving Prosser’s former corporate interests, and the other his private interests.
Legal fees paid by Prosser himself, and other members of his family, are not included in the $35 million (and have not been recorded in any court documents viewed by the Source). The $35 million also does not include the extensive fees paid by Prosser’s creditors to their own lawyers.
The fees charged by the professionals working on Prosser’s personal holdings are $2.84 million, while those for his one-time corporate holdings come to $32.8 million.
The Rural Telephone Financial Cooperative, the specialized, nonprofit bank in Virginia that lent Prosser and his corporations well over half a billion dollars, have, from time to time, advanced funds for the payment of some of these professional bills.
Other bills have been paid out of the proceeds of the sales of various properties once owned by Prosser and his corporations, and still others out of the ongoing profits of those entities.
