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Fighting in Court with Former Lover, Lawyer Lands in JailLock Icon

3 min read

The split between a Little Rock attorney and the business owner with whom he had a romantic relationship has gotten messier.

Little Rock attorney Jason A. Stuart recently spent the night in the Pulaski County County Regional Detention Facility on a contempt of court order for allegedly failing to hand over business documents and information to Cara Lafferty and her companies, including Caraco Inc., which is a day care business. Stuart also owns Four Gables Construction LLC, which buys and sells houses.

If you recall, earlier this year Lafferty and her companies sued Stuart, accusing him of improperly withdrawing at least $115,000 that belonged to her companies and breach of fiduciary duty. She also said in court filings that Stuart was in possession of her companies’ business records, records that she needed but that he failed to release.

On Feb. 24, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Fox said in an order that Stuart “shall produce all records, financial and otherwise, to Ms. Lafferty immediately.” The order also said that Stuart had to return any money taken from the accounts on Jan. 30, while Lafferty had to return money taken from any account after Jan. 30.

By April 13, however, Stuart allegedly had not returned the disputed $132,000 “in direct defiance of this Court’s order,” Lafferty’s attorney, Tré Kitchens of the Brad Hendricks Law Firm in Little Rock, said in a motion for contempt. Kitchens also said some of the documents sought hadn’t been handed over either.

Acting as his own attorney, Stuart denied that he was in contempt of the February order. He also said that the $132,000 was used for “legitimate business expenses.”

Fox ordered Stuart arrested on April 29, saying “Mr. Stuart is in contempt” of the Feb. 24 order. Stuart told Whispers last week the order is being contested. “That was an illegal order issued by the judge,” he said. “It will ultimately be removed or deemed to have been an unconstitutional order.”

He also said the files that were mentioned in the contempt order “had already been provided to them.”

“The whole thing was motivated not by anything other than an abuse of process,” Stuart said. “So you can look forward to an abuse of process claim being added to my counterclaims.”

He Said

In March, Stuart denied the allegations in Lafferty’s lawsuit in his 103-page answer and counterclaim.

“Lafferty’s wickedly deceptive conduct caused Stuart to fall deeply in love with Lafferty, while casting aside his emotional and logical safeguards, completely trusting Lafferty,” he wrote.

But she never loved him, he wrote.

“Instead, Lafferty’s conduct with respect to Stuart was actually a carefully coordinated scheme of concealment, deceit and manipulation constituting fraud and fraudulent inducement for Lafferty’s financial gain at Stuart’s expense,” Stuart said in the filing.

Stuart said that between May 2016 and late 2019, he contributed or lent more than $250,000 to Lafferty’s companies. He also used “several thousand hours of his own ‘sweat equity’” to improve her companies. Stuart said Lafferty was going to transfer 49% of the equity interest in the companies to him, but that was never finalized.

He is seeking millions of dollars in damages. Lafferty denied his allegations in her answer.

Stuart recently hired attorney Luther Oneal Sutter of Benton to represent him.

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