Washington County Circuit Judge Doug Martin appointed a receiver to oversee the accounting for Uncle Sam’s Fireworks Inc. of Hindsville (Madison County) after the company’s owner filed a lawsuit against the company’s president.
In a suit filed in late June by attorneys William Mertins and Michelle Jaskolski, Mary Pourvash of Fayetteville asked for a temporary restraining order against Uncle Sam’s Fireworks and President Andy Clark. On the day before the Fourth of July, Martin appointed Fayetteville CPA Dennis Sisson as receiver for the company and granted a temporary restraining order to prevent Clark from making unapproved transactions on the Uncle Sam’s bank account.
On July 6, Martin granted a 120-day injunction. Stanley Bond and Emily Henson, Clark’s attorneys, appeared in court and had no objection to the injunction or Sisson’s appointment, but they had not otherwise responded to the allegations.
In the suit, Pourvash said she owned 75 percent of Uncle Sam’s but feared that Clark would “waste, misappropriate or otherwise fail to secure” revenue from the season’s fireworks sale. Mary Pourvash is the widow of Uncle Sam’s owner Nader Pourvash, who died in 2011; Uncle Sam’s has approximately 40 locations in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri.
Pourvash alleged that Clark told her in April 2018 that, according to Uncle Sam’s 2017 federal tax return, the company had nearly $800,000 in inventory; later that month, the inventory was listed as $414,000 on a balance sheet and, in mid-June, the inventory had dropped to $154,000.
Pourvash said Clark gave no accounting or explanation for the drop in inventory value.
Pourvash also said she received a past-due notice from vendor Fireworks Over America for a $134,000 bill. Pourvash said Clark knew of this creditor but didn’t put it on the balance sheet.
Pourvash had claimed in the suit that Clark had “improperly received” funds that belonged to her or to Uncle Sam’s, but she couldn’t know the actual amount without a court-ordered accounting.
Pourvash said Clark had sold a “substantial asset” — a warehouse in Louisiana — without her knowledge and allowed a former employee to take over Uncle Sam’s retail operation in Louisiana.
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