Hearing seeks answers about closed auction house

Thursday, July 29, 2010

By ALBERT McKEON

Staff Writer

MANCHESTER – No one brought their guns to the J.C. Devine bankruptcy hearing Friday.

They don’t have them anymore.

About a dozen people came armed with questions about the ownership of their weapons at the federal bankruptcy hearing that reviewed the financial history of the shuttered firearm auction firm.

The Milford company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy to liquidate assets after the February death of its 72-year-old owner, Joe Devine. The company shut down abruptly in April, but not before holding a previously scheduled auction in March.

That sale and a slew of proprietary questions dominated discussion among consigners, the deceased owner’s son, a bank attorney and a court- appointed bankruptcy trustee.

The trustee, Victor Dahar, asked questions of Joseph J. Devine, who recently became president of the trust that now owns J.C. Devine.

Joseph Devine at times had precise responses, but other times, he had vague answers.

“Of course, I walked into this,” Devine said while seated at a table with his attorney, a second lawyer who represented TD Bank and Dahar – and in front of a room filled with gun owners and former employees of the company.

“I don’t know much about this business,” he said. “It’s been difficult trying to gather this information.”

Dahar wanted to know where the keys to several vehicles were, as well as accounts receivable, checks and an accounting of many consigners’ weapons.

Devine said the keys to the vehicles and important paperwork are locked in an office. He said he didn’t have the key to the office, but that a woman who had been assisting him did.

The whereabouts of the key and a lack of answers drew sighs of frustration from several in the crowd.

Many consigners simply want to know what happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars in receipts from the latest auction and whether they will see their fair share.

Devine said that sale netted about $76,000. Several consigners disputed that estimate and believe the proceeds to be higher.

Others want to learn where their firearms are and when they can have them back.

Dahar will try to make sense of the various issues to see what assets can be liquidated and whether people can be compensated. He already demanded the titles and keys to several vehicles, one of which is in Florida, where Joe Devine owned a condominium.

If the consigners and creditors who filed a claim in U.S. Bankruptcy Court believe they didn’t get a fair shake in the end, they can sue.

“I don’t know if my weapons were sold or are in the building,” Hudson resident John Zalenchak said of J.C. Devine’s Milford office.

Zalenchak echoed many consigners’ concerns when he asked who authorized the March auction after Joe Devine’s death, particularly with it being obvious that legal problems would arise.

Devine said that after his father’s death, the company’s five employees arranged to hold the auction.

But the company bookkeeper told Dahar that the trust, and not the employees, authorized the auction. The woman refused to provide her name to The Telegraph, but after the hearing, Dahar said she was Jeanne Joaquim.

Devine then shed light on the ownership of the trust in the days after his father’s death.

His brother, John Devine, was a co-trustee and made decisions, he said.

But without explaining to Dahar what happened to his brother, Joseph Devine said he appointed himself president in mid-April.

Joseph Devine also revealed that his brother has established a new auction firm and that some firearms were transferred to that company, but only with the permission of consigners.

Officials previously had said the bankruptcy has been complicated because J.C. Devine’s finances were closely intertwined with those of Joe Devine.

That was evident at the hearing when Dahar tried to distinguish whether the company – now in the holding of the trust – or the late Devine held ownership of motor vehicles and other possessions.

Dahar learned that J.C. Devine, or perhaps Joe Devine, owed TD Bank money. When the five employees tried to cash checks written by Joseph Devine as compensation for accrued vacation time, they bounced.

TD Bank had removed all money from the account to pay a debt, Joseph Devine said.

Scott King, of Holderness, who claims J.C. Devine owes him $14,379, questioned the legality of TD Bank taking the money.

Dahar asked the TD Bank attorney for details on that transaction, and wants to know if some or all of that money belongs to consigners.

Larry Joubert, of Hanover, Mass., provided Dahar and other consigners a list of what was sold at the last auction.

He said the list was posted on the J.C. Devine website after the auction but then removed.

Joubert said his instincts told him to print the list because he had a feeling things were about to go awry.

Albert McKeon can be reached at 594-5832 or amckeon @nashuatelegraph.com.