Deposition ordered for company chief
Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2008
A Pulaski County circuit judge on Tuesday ordered the chairman of Creative Chicken Corp. to show up for a deposition today with the Arkansas Securities Department.
Officials with the securities agency requested Judge Tim Fox’s help on Monday, fearing the Siloam Springs company’s chairman, Owen Laughlin, might not show up for the deposition that is part of a Securities Department investigation.
Laughlin notified the department Aug. 10 that he was leaving on a two-month business trip and would be unable to attend the deposition, but he said Tuesday afternoon that he was on his way to Little Rock for the meeting. He didn’t know Fox had ordered him to show up.
“We want to be there,” Laughlin said.
Arkansas Securities Commissioner A. Heath Abshure issued a cease-and-desist order July 28 against the Siloam Springs company that’s trying to raise $ 50 million by selling stock. The company wants to build a plant that would convert poultry litter in Northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma into commercial fertilizer.
The state in court documents said the company failed to register its stock with the Securities Department before trying to sell it, and the company didn’t request an exemption from registration. The Securities Department said the company would have had to do one of those to operate legally in Arkansas.
The state on July 28 also ordered the company to make its Web site — www. creativeconsultant. org — inaccessible to potential investors. Laughlin said Tuesday that he didn’t think he’d been told to take down the Web site.
“They asked me if I would,” Laughlin said. “They don’t have any authority to make me take it down. Free speech.
“ I’m not the evil person the state of Arkansas is trying to make me out as. They want to persecute me, and I don’t know why.” The company’s Web site was functioning Tuesday, but it has been modified somewhat.
In a section about investing with the company, the Web site says “no information on this Web site is to be construed as an offering of stock or shares for sale.” The next sentence, however, tells readers to contact Laughlin to determine whether “you reside in a state which qualifies you to be an investor or not.”
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