The crumbling business empire of Edward M. Harvey affected the finances of his stepdaughter, who is married to U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.
As a member of the Senate since 2003, Pryor has to file annual financial disclosure reports.
In 2006, Pryor reported that he and his wife, Jill, owned publicly traded assets worth between $631,005 and $1.365 million. The filings list only a range of value, not the exact amount. The filings don't require the Pryors to list the value of their property.
Those assets were all held by Jill Pryor and included Conx Capital Corp. of Carson City, Nev.; Continental Lumber Co. of Little Rock; EMH & BPH South Dakota Trust; Great Western Leasing of Carson City, Nev.; and Pioneer Bank & Trust.
The next year, the value of Mark Pryor's publicly traded assets plummeted to less than $45,000, according to the report. Pryor spokesman Michael Teague told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the asset losses were tied to internal company problems and the poor economy.
"These companies basically don't exist anymore," Teague said in the 2008 article. "It was all on paper."
The value of the Pryors' publicly traded assets didn't rise above $16,000 in 2008 or 2009.
Pryor, through his office, declined to comment on Ed Harvey, an entrepreneur whose diverse and complex business portfolio had made him a millionaire many times over.
But the 78-year-old Little Rock man, who once owned Gibraltar National Insurance Co. - itself the center of controversy lately - and one of the largest trucking companies in Arkansas, Continental Express Inc. of Little Rock, wasn't able to ride out the Great Recession. Judgments started piling up against Harvey and his companies.
More on Ed Harvey's Financial Troubles
See Arkansas Business' full cover story this week, "The Rise and Fall of Ed Harvey's Business Empire"
