Updated July 14, 2006 (see below)

There have been a couple of updates related to the pending Chaper 11 case of International Managements Associates, and the pending criminal case against its principal, Kirk Wright. See here for a previous post.

Twenty four new counts of mail and securities fraud were just added against Kirk Wright. 

Additionally, several former NFL players who lost money investing with Wright filed a lawsuit against the NFL and Players Union, alleging (according to the article) that the NFL and/or Union endorsed the investments. See story here.   The former players in the lawsuit allegedly lost a collective $20 million.

The article includes the following quote from plaintiff Steve Atwater –

"They are a huge billion-dollar company," Atwater, a former Pro Bowl safety for the Denver Broncos, said of the NFL at a news conference. "We hope that they would at least come to the table and talk to us."

One can draw their own conclusions from the comment, but you can read the Complaint here.

Update July 14, 2006 – From the Atlanta Journal —

Judge Clarence Cooper concurred with the U.S. attorney’s office. He revoked a $1 million conditional bond granted by a Miami magistrate and ordered Wright detained until he faces trial on two dozen counts of mail and securities fraud. Wright has pleaded not guilty.

….
About 80 percent of those collective funds is determined to have been all but consumed by Wright, according to court-appointed receiver William Perkins, while the rest has not been traced. Authorities say the accounts may have grown in value to $180 million and that Wright operated a Ponzi scheme, raiding the account of one investor to pay another.

…

Anand said arresting officers found in Wright’s Ritz-Carlton hotel room, where he was registered under a fake name, an X-Acto knife and laminating material, apparently used to create cards and documents of two false personas.

Incorporation papers retrieved from the room, Anand said, suggested that Wright was creating a company called Co-Accent Medical Associates. The prosecutor noted that Wright could have begun defrauding investors anew.