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Published: February 02 2013

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL -- Four years ago, South Florida businessman Marvin Chaney leased out the first storage unit in his much anticipated, high-tech, high-end storage facility just north of the Fort Lauderdale airport.  This was not your grandmother's storage locker.  This was RoboVault.  Billed as the world's first "high-tech robotic storage facility", RoboVault was designed to serve as a Fort Knox for South Florida's elites.  RoboVault was supposedly built to withstand category 5 hurricanes and 200 mile per hour winds and equipped with all the bells and whistles including backup power generators, 24/7 security and biometric recognition.  The first tenant was Blue Martini, which signed a lease for wine storage in a climate controlled unit.  Other tenants soon followed, renting space to store everything from exotic cars to precious artwork.  In its early days, it seemed like the good times would just keep coming.  A press release from February 2010 boasted about RoboVault's wine lounge and a VIP wine-tasting event with renowned winemaker Heidi Peterson Barrett, featuring catering provided by the Capital Grille.  Anyone who has lived in South Florida long enough knows where this is headed.

Behind all of RoboVault's glitz and glamour was a poorly run business teetering on the brink of collapse.  In late September of last year, RoboVault filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida.  In its bankruptcy filings, the company said it owed $20 million to Bank Atlantic.  Things only got stranger from there.  Over the following weeks, a story emerged about RoboVault's supposed involvement with the owners of some 30,000 historical bonds, mostly from China, Germany and Mexico and dating back to the 1890s through 1920s.  According to Marvin Chaney and his attorney, the bondholders had been storing their valuable bonds at RoboVault in anticipation of a major upcoming transaction, disrupting operations at RoboVault and basically running amuck.  Nobody knows how RoboVault supposedly got involved with hordes of historical bond traders, but what we do know is that historical bond fraud is widespread.  Fraudsters around the world have long been selling fake historical bonds.

But the circus show did not stop there.  After the Trustee obtained court permission to take control of RoboVault, the Trustee dispatched his agents to the vault.  In response, Chaney and his attorney, Lawrence Wrenn, contacted the police to report that RoboVault was being robbed.  As if that wasn't enough, Chaney and Wrenn then arranged for a letter to be sent to the Trustee, purportedly from the "Office of the Postmaster General of North America", ordering the Trustee to cease and desist in its administration of the bankruptcy proceedings.  In fact, the letter was written by one James Thomas McBride, a convicted felon and sovereign separatist who, apparently, suffers from the delusion that he possesses certain authority conferred by the Pope.

Beyond the sideshow, Chaney and Wrenn also refused to cooperate with the Trustee in the bankruptcy proceedings and blatantly flouted court orders.  They refused to hand over documents and financial schedules.  They skipped hearings and depositions.  Eventually, things came to a head when Judge John Olson ordered the arrest of Channey and Wren for violating too many court orders.  Channey was arrested on Tuesday.  Apparently, his attorney, Lawrence Wrenn, still remains at large.  Just another day of business as usual in South Florida.

Pollard LLC
Jonathan Pollard is a trial lawyer and litigator based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  He focuses his practice on cases involving employment disputes, antitrust and business torts.

401 E. Las Olas Blvd. #1400 Fort Lauderdale, Fl 33301
www.pollardllc.com