Fred Heebe's River Birch Inc. has finally taken ownership of the St. Tammany property WWL-AM radio host Garland Robinette used to repay a $250,000 loan from Heebe, according to public records
Fred Heebe's River Birch Inc. has finally taken ownership of the St. Tammany property WWL-AM radio host Garland Robinette used to repay a $250,000 loan from Heebe, according to public records. The transfer, registered with the secretary of state this week, paid off a 2007 loan that came under FBI scrutiny in a now-defunct investigation of the landfill company.
River Birch recorded the transaction Monday, when it became owner of N.H. Rhett LLC, according to the records. Rhett LLC , which owns the Covington lot, was once controlled by Robinette's wife, Nancy Halstead Rhett. She put the property in Rhett LLC's name last year.
Heebe delivered the money to Robinette in 2007 through Westside Construction, a firm controlled by River Birch's executive Dominick Fazzio. The loan is being repaid by the same route, as Nancy Rhett last year transferred Rhett LLC to Fazzio and Fazzio in turn is now transferring it to River Birch.
"That completes the circle," said Fazzio's attorney, Arthur "Buddy" Lemann. Robinette's attorney, Lewis Unglesby, declined a request for comment Friday.
Lemann said in March that Heebe had taken ownership of the Mandeville property last year, and that documents recording the transaction were to be filed soon. The April 1 record is the first public indication that River Birch now owns the property. But Heebe's name is not in the secretary of state document. Instead, the record lists Jim Ward, Heebe's stepfather and co-owner of River Birch, as the new agent for Rhett LLC and River Birch as the corporation's owner.
Heebe gave the $250,000 to Robinette after the radio host criticized the reopening of a New Orleans landfill that was competing with River Birch for Hurricane Katrina debris. NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune reported the payment in September 2011. Robinette said the money was a personal loan and that he did nothing improper.
But that raised questions of why Heebe used Fazzio's Westside Construction as an intermediary to deliver the money to Robinette, and FBI agents examined the loan. The state Ethics Board is still pursuing a civil lawsuit accusing Fazzio of using Westside Construction and other firms under his control as "straw man" entities to deliver political contributions on River Birch's behalf. Lemann has said Westside Construction is a legitimate company.
Robinette and Heebe were never charged with any crime. In a statement issued through Unglesby on March 8, after prosecutors announced the end of the River Birch probe, Robinette thanked the government "for reaching the right result" and reaffirmed that "he never had done anything wrong."
The final transfer of the Covington property to River Birch comes two weeks after Robinette disputed the recorded value of the lot, a vacant property in Tchefuncte Club Estates, at 7 Riverdale Drive. An appraiser hired by Robinette valued the lot at $280,000 in October 2011, or $30,000 more than the loan. That valuation was higher than the $235,000 Rhett listed when she transferred the lot to her LLC just months before the cited appraisal.
The value cited in the private appraisal also is substantially higher than the $180,000 listed in St. Tammany's 2012 assessment, which was based on 2011 sales.
Unglesby has said that the October 2011 appraisal "was valid and accepted by all sides. No one disputes the appraisal."