Affiliated Foods Bankruptcy Case Lingers with U.S. Bank Lawsuit

The former Affliated Food Stores warehouse at 12103 I-30 in Little Rock, photographed in 2012. The site is now used as a facility for CalArk.

Earlier this month, Affiliated Foods Southwest Inc. entered its seventh year in bankruptcy court.

The case has generated more than 4,500 docket entries and 883 claims totaling $115.3 million.

Trustee Richard Cox of Hot Springs didn’t return a call. Buried under all those documents, perhaps.

But in a recent development, Cox, as trustee, sued U.S. Bank in an attempt to collect nearly $600,000 Affiliated Foods had in an account with the bank.

Cox said it asked the bank to hand over the money, but it refused. The bank hasn’t filed an answer in the case yet.

Affiliated Foods, once one of the state’s largest private companies, reported $47.6 million in assets and $101.5 million in debt — $62.5 million of it unsecured — when it filed for bankruptcy on May 5, 2009.

The fallout from the company’s collapse included prison sentences for former CEO John Mills and former CFO Alexander “Lex” Martinez. Both have completed their prison sentences.