A lawsuit over the failed Port Haven development in Eastpoint ended Friday without any guilty verdicts for the groups involved.
PortHaven was planned as a 31 acre mixed-use development with a commercial district at its center and public access to the Apalachicola Bay.
14 private investors and investment groups in the development filed a federal lawsuit in June of 2008 in the Arkansas Western District Court in Fayetteville, seeking a return of their 2.7 million dollar investment as well as punitive damages.
Investors had accused the developers of securities fraud for deceiving them from the beginning of the project and then providing bogus project updates that lured the plaintiffs into investing even more money.
The suit originally included a long list of individuals and LLCs, most of which filed for bankruptcy since the complaint was filed.
The court dismissed many of the other charges, leaving only an Arkansas Bank called Chambers Bank as well as a bank employee and the nephew of the Chambers Bank CEO by the name of JR Meeks to face civil conspiracy charges.
The lawsuit claimed Meeks received a $1 million interest in the project without making a cash contribution.
It also claimed Chambers Bank knew that Meeks had an interest in the development and that there were insufficient funds to close on the development loan.
The trial took nearly two weeks to complete and last Friday the jury came back with a not guilty verdict on al of the charges.
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