Lawrenceburg Likely To Collect $370K Owed By Company Who Cashed Mistake Check

ProMaxima Manufacturing had cashed the check which was supposed to be written to Proximo Distillers in 2012.

A copy of the 2012 mistake check written by the City of Lawrenceburg to ProMaxima Manufacturing LTD. File photo. 

(Lawrenceburg, Ind.) - The City of Lawrenceburg has won a major victory in its quest to recoup a large amount of money that was mistakenly sent to the wrong company.

Back in 2012, a city grant for $850,000 was awarded to local business Proximo Distillers.

However, an accounting error in the city’s clerk-treasurer’s office caused the check for the first of two installments, $375,000, to be made out to and sent to another company called ProMaxima Manufacturing LTD – notice the similarity in names. The Texas fitness equipment supplier had been in the city’s accounting because it had purchased fitness equipment for the Lawrenceburg Police Department several years earlier.

The company cashed the errant check even though it was not due the money. After the city realized the mistakenly written check was cashed, it worked out a deal with ProMaxima in 2015 to have the money repaid $2,500 each month until it was made whole. ProMaxima stopped after making just two payments.

In 2017, the city filed a lawsuit against ProMaxima in Dearborn County Court. On Monday, the local judge ruled in favor of the city.

“The facts were very, very clear,” city attorney Del Weldon tells Eagle Country 99.3.

Weldon says a summary judgment will be coming soon, allowing the city to collect the outstanding $370,000 from ProMaxima. The repayment will also include eight percent per annum interest.

“We’re positive that we are going to get all the money back,” he says.

The city may move to foreclose on ProMaxima property in order to collect, but the city attorney is hopeful the large company will simply pay in cash.

Weldon says there is no way the same mistake could happen in the clerk-treasurer’s office today. He pointed to new internal controls and self-auditing practices which have been put in place by current clerk-treasurer Richard Richardson.

The Dearborn-Ohio County Prosecutor's Office had been asked by city officials to look at potential criminal charges against ProMaxima or company executives, but none were ever filed.

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