Broken dreams

Deborah Buhler was in the bathroom and didn't hear the doorbell when the sheriff's deputy rang. The next thing she knew someone was threatening to shoot the lock off the door-now, by God-if she didn't come out immediately.

Mid-morning, July 14,2005. The deputy forced his way into the house when

The Buhlers had amassed a fortune in beautiful antique furniture over the years, including many pieces Deborah had brought into the marriage. Her husband had pledged all of it to State Bank and Trust as collateral on a loan, however, and the bank was coming for its due after making the decision to call in Buhler's loan.

According to a lawyer familiar with the incident, it took a fleet of moving vans to haul everything off-chandeliers, paintings, carved chairs, beds, tables, mirrors, lamps, paintings, armoires-an antiques treasure trove.

Ken Buhler-who wasnt at home the day of the seizure-had made a name for himself buying and selling just this kind of high-end merchandise. He was the man behind Ken Buhler Auctioneers, Design Warehouse use and Warehouse 212. He helped pioneer antiques auctions online when he started GoAntiques in 1999.

He'd been successful. He'd sold thousands of dollars worth of merchandise a year. So what led to the seizure of his assets? It's a complicated story rife with acrimony, conflicting agendas and wildly disparate accounts of what happened and why.

Aiming high

Deborah Buhler says her husband was born with a gift for selling antiques. He made millions of dollars of deposits into the bank that would eventually foreclose on him.

"I made a lot of money over the years. I was successful," Ken Buhler says. "I've sold for and sold to the most affluent people in the state of Louisiana over the years."

Buhler's troubles seemed to begin with GoAntiques, which he founded after deciding the Internet would become a hot marketplace for antiques. In a virtual warehouse, dealers from around the world could list their inventories for sale, and buyers could peruse those inventories.

But it took money. Buhler brought in Houston-based Stanford Financial Group as a major investor. The first round of financing was completed in August 1999. Two months later, the first GoAntiques Web site was launched. In February 2000, the company bought Antique Networking Inc., an Ohiobased Internet auction firm founded in 1994, in a stock transaction worth $2.5 million. Buhler, serving as CEO and chairman of the board, kept the GoAntiques moniker. Technical operations took place in Ohio, though the headquarters stayed in Baton Rouge.

In April 2002, GoAntiques added two new board members, including Nanette Noland, president and CEO of the Powell Group and chairwoman of General Health System-a significant presence in Baton Rouge business circles. But soon things began to go wrong. By the end of 2002, it was obvious the company was in trouble. GoAntiques was losing $240,000 a month. Buhler had given up his majority stockholder status to chase capital to keep the company afloat. Ironically, it was the Stanford Group-controlled board of directors who eventually fired him. That fact, says Buhler-who was arguably out of his element as a CEO-hit him hard.

A changed man

"It dramatically affected me and my ability to perform," he says.

"The reality of it is, when you're set back like that, when somebody takes something away from you, you feel like a failure, so it definitely affected my abflity to drive forward."

Deborah says her husband came out of the GoAntiques debacle changed.

"He never got back in the groove of it," she says. "We could have generated so much cash at auction, but he just wasnt focused. It's almost like he lost interest in the business. He had a passion for antiques at one time. He loved antiques."

Trying to get back on his feet, Buhler secured a $150,000 loan from State Bank in 2003 to build up inventory for his old auction company. He also convinced a group of investors to put up $300,000 for inventory in a limited liability corporation he named Antique Investment Group. Buhler would be in charge of buying and auctioning the items, while the investors would get a percentage of the profits each quarter. Buhler moved his operations into a warehouse on 14th Street in Mid City.

One of the AIG investors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says he'd had successful business dealings with Buhler in the past and had no reason to doubt things wouldn't go well again. He says Buhler was straightforward about his troubles with GoAntiques and his struggle to pull himself back up. Pretty soon things went sour.

"It became pretty clear almost from the get-go that he wasn't doing the business out of [the warehouse] that he had led us to believe he could. Month after month would go by, and there were no auctions."

Unbeknownst to the investors, Buhler was without a current auctioneer's license; thus, no auctions.

He managed to pay a couple of investors the first two quarters, but that was it. A meeting with Buhler was called to get to the bottom of things. At that meeting, Buhler admitted he'd used part of the investors' money for personal expenses, despite the fact that money had been strictly earmarked for acquiring inventory and nothing else. Buhler's finances were spinning out of control, apparently, and he was doing anything he could to keep all the balls in the air.

Desperate measures

"He was robbing Peter to pay Paul," says the investor. "We had several meetings with him to try to get this thing back on track. Nobody wanted to pull the rug out completely, because then we knew we'd lose our investment."

But that's exactly what happened, when State Bank called in Buhler's loans. The investors learned Buhler had pledged the AIG inventory to the bank, probably in a last-ditch effort to avoid foreclosure. That meant the bank had claim to the antiques bought with AIG money. But Buhler had also promised this property to the investors as security.

Buhler says it was Wayne Triche's idea. Triche was the family's longtime CPA, according to Buhler.

"He said, 'Ken, this is done all the time. This will really help the bank feel more secure." Like an idiot, I did it. Little did I know the whole time they were planning to come in and seize all my s**t."

Triche, who started Triche & Associates in the early 1990s, says Buhler is lying. In fact, Triche asserts he was no longer Buhler's CPA by the end of 2003 due to nonpayment for services. Even then, he says Buhler would call the firm with ideas for shoring up his financial position. Triche maintains he might have been a sounding board on those occasions, but certainly not an adviser. As for pledging AIG's assets to State Bank, that was Buhler's idea. Triche says he and a business associate even suggested to Buhler it was not a good one.

"Ken felt it would be a good idea that would work. You can't fault him for that. He was putting forth an effort to do what he thought was correct, though a lot of people were hurt financially."

But Charlotte Glaspie, a bookkeeper who worked for Buhler for about a year-and-a-half before she was "let go," says Triche had more to do with cross-pledging AIG's inventory than he's admitting. Glaspie, who works for Raymond Heck, another AIG investor, says she asked Triche about the legality of such a move when Triche came to Buhler's warehouse to pick up a list of assets Glaspie had preparedincluding a separate list of all the AIG inventory-for State Bank.

I asked him very specifically, because at that time I was concerned about Raymond and the other investors. I sort of felt a responsibility for bringing him in. I made the introduction, so I felt obligated to look out for his investment. If I knew this was going to happen, I would have told him not to go anywhere near it."

Glaspie says Triche told her AIG's responsibility to the investors didnt go beyond guaranteeing them a quarterly return-despite any language about security in the promissory note-and that, at any rate, crosspledging was legal.

"If it's not illegal, it should be," Glaspie says.

As for Triche's claim he no longer served as adviser to the Buhlers after late 2003, Glaspie remembers several occasions after that when Triche met with the Buhlers at the warehouse.

"I know they met right there in the office," Glaspie says. "I promise I won't lie to you. I have nothing to gain."

Triche did not respond to requests for more information.

Up against-the wall

Buhler was clearly acting out of desperation, says the anonymous investor.

"He would have paid everybody had the business succeeded. It's like anything. When you run out of money and you're trying to figure out how to keep the lights on, people do crazy dumb things."

But the investor also blames bank officials for refusing to negotiate with him and the other investors in getting back at least some of the assets they'd paid for and the bank seized. A legal bid to wrest ownership of those assets away from State Bank ran into a brick wall after a federal judge-who initially ruled in favor of the investorsreversed his own decision and ruled there was no question of ownership: The property belonged to the bank. After that, the investors' attorneys advised giving up the chase.

Allen Richardson, a Memphis CPA and another of the AIG investors, says it all comes down to the fact State Bank did the paperwork necessary to obtain the first hen against the AIG inventory, and the AIG investors did not.

"From this point on, everything else is pretty much public record. The bank seizes the inventory. We spend more money for attorneys' fees and lose the whole ball of wax."

Richardson blames Buhler, calling him "a salesman, not a businessman," who "committed fraud, commingled assets, committed breach of contract and did not live up to his agreed upon fiduciary duties." He also believes emphatically Buhler should be in jail.

State Bank made its move on July 13, 2005, presenting Buhler with a thick document to sign, giving the bank ownership of the warehouse antiques inventory and all the items in his home, and prohibiting Buhler from taking future legal action against the bank. Buhler had already sold a building he owned to satisfy $500,000 of his loan debt, but he still owed a little over $500,000.

Buhler refused to sign the bank's document and the next morning, the moving vans showed up. Five months later, at a Dec. 7 sheriff's sale, State Bank paid $3,000 for the contents that had been seized from the house, a fraction of what they were worth. The bank purchased the contents of the warehouse at a May 10 sheriffs sale for $18,000; again, nothing compared to the actual value.

The Buhler's attempts to get their property back-property that included antiques Deborah brought into the 15-year marriage but which were pledged to the bank nonetheless-became moot when everything was auctioned off June 9 and 10 in Aberdeen, Miss.

Vendetta or paranoia?

Buhler says the foreclosure blindsided him.

"I was 32 days late on my payment. I had just reduced my debt from a million dollars to $500,000 dollars. Let's do the math."

But he believes he knows the real reason for the foreclosure: State Bank wasn't merely protecting its interests; there was something personal. What's now State Bank in Baton Rouge was once First Bank until it was sold. Buhler would go to Jim Tanner, owner of First Bank, when he needed help with a loan.

That meant going over bank President Rick Hollan's head. Since the sale, Tanner has left, and Hollan is still there. Buhler is convinced the seizure was nothing more than payback.

I don't care who thinks I'm paranoid. The whole thing was a personal vendetta against me by Rick Hollan. I'll go to my grave knowing that's the truth."

State Bank officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

However, Stephen Chiccarelli, an attomey representing the bank, said in a previous interview the bank did try to work with Buhler to avoid seizing property from the home. Buhler disputes the bank gave him such an opportunity.

Joseph "Beaver" Brantley IV, Buhler's friend and part-time attorney, concedes Buhler got himself into a financial mess, but he thinks State Bank's actions were unnecessarily punitive. Brantley, who admits he was "on the sidelines" during the entire affair, believes Buhler might not be entirely mistaken in his theory that something personal was at work, despite Hollan's denials.

"It was not a pretty sight," Brantley says. "Looking at it from this side of the table, it was unnecessary. It was uncalled for. Could they have handled it differently? Yes, they could have."

He says the bank could have done what's called a constructive seizure, where the debtors' assets are "seized" but remain in the debtor's custody until some type of resolution takes place, whether the items are sold off piece by piece or the debt is paid some other way. In a constructive seizure, Buhler wouldn't have been able to dispose of a stick of furniture without incurring prosecution, the bank would have been paid and Buhler could save face. Brantley says as far as he knows Buhler wasn't offered that option.

"[The bank] had a detailed inventory. This stuff wasn't going anywhere. The last thing Ken or Deborah wanted to do was lose every possession in their house and to be humiliated in front of their neighbors and in front of the public."

Fewer people would have gotten hurt-including the AIG investors and consignors whose antiques were swept up in the seizure and never reclaimedhad Buhler been given the opportunity for a "graceful retreat."

"People do strange things when they're faced with the loss of everything they have financially. I've always had a saying that you never want to put anybody in a comer, because then you force them to fight and you force them to do things that people normally wouldn't do," says Brantley.

A source close to the case but who refuses to be identified says the bank spent six months trying to get Buhler to sell his inventory and possessions to pay off his debts, but he refused. State Bank also learned Buhler hadn't made a mortgage payment on his house in over a year, and the property was in danger of foreclosure. It was either seize the property or "let the collateral end up on the street."

As far as refusing to entertain the Buhlers' offers to buy their furniture back from the warehouse and the home, bank officials were in no mood to negotiate after Buhler physically threatened State Bank officials, the source says. The bank was advised by its insurers, the FBI and the police not to have any contact, he adds.

Brantley, who helped put together GoAntiques and arranged Buhler's meeting with the Stanford Group, is representing his old client, once again, this time to try to get his auctioneering license back. Someone besides Buhler is paying for it, though Brantley won't say who.

The state auctioneers licensing board revoked Buhler's license April 11, following complaints by several consignors that Buhler had taken their merchandise to sell, never paid them and wouldn't return phone calls.

The revocation of Buhler's license deprives him of the ability to repay consignors who lost their merchandise. Since the seizure of his inventory, Buhler has been doing auctioneering work in states that don't require licensing.

"Hopefully, there will be some successful resolution," Brantley says. "I feel relatively positive about it."

In the meantime, Deborah is living in her empty Lobdell Gardens mansion. The few pieces of furniture in it are borrowed. Ken no longer lives there and is staying with family. Deborah has filed for divorce. Still reeling from the experience of losing all her possessions, unable to afford an attorney and uncertain about what to do next, she insists she was taken completely unaware by the seizure. She blames her husband, but also blames bank officials and Wayne Triche.

"What they did here was wrong," Buhler says. "If they had a problem with Ken, why not prosecute Ken instead of destroying a whole family?"

Ken Buhler, despite everything that's happened, says it's too soon to count him out. He's been doing auctioneering work outside of Louisiana and insists estates are lined up waiting do business with him in this state as soon as he gets his auction license back.

"I will be back. I will be on top again. I am the best at what I do in this town. There's a lot more people out there that want to do business with me and want to see me in business than don't."