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Ammon News - WEST PALM BEACH — More than a year after a jury ordered Gulf Stream billionaire Harry Sargeant III to pay the brother-in-law of the king of Jordan $28.8 million for cutting him out of a lucrative defense contract, the onetime formidable GOP fundraiser hasn’t paid his former business partner a dime.

Claiming the court-ordered debt has now ballooned to $31.2 million, Jordanian national Mohammad al-Saleh is headed back to court to force Sargeant and a third former business partner to pay up.

The two have created a series of shell companies to frustrate al-Saleh’s efforts to collect what he is owed, attorneys representing the part-time Palm Beach resident claim in papers filed late Friday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. The two — Sargeant and Jordanian national Mustafa Abu-Naba’a who lives in the Dominican Republic — are “engaging in quintessential ‘hide the ball’ tactics,” al-Saleh’s attorneys claim.

“It is very clear that (they) have not paid the judgments not because of an inability to pay but, rather, because they simply refuse to do so and have ordered their corporate affairs to attempt to cynically make a mockery of this court’s judgment,” they wrote.

As evidence of Sargeant’s ability to pay, they point out that he spent millions commissioning a 144-foot tri-deck yacht from a boat builder in Vancouver. However, Canadian court records that Sargeant no longer has access to the millions or the luxurious mega-yacht. He claims he spent roughly $11 million and got a $9.4 million loan to build the yacht. After a series of disputes with Worldspan Marine, in January 2010 Sargeant stopped making payments.

Faced with $4.9 million in unpaid bills and its boat yard consumed by the unfinished behemoth, the company filed bankruptcy. The yacht is now on the market for $18.9 million to satisfy company debts. Al-Saleh, who is married to the sister of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, says he should get some of the millions when the court-ordered sale is consummated.

Even discounting the troubled history of the yacht, al-Saleh’s attorneys claim there is substantial evidence Sargeant and Abu-Naba’a can pay. The disputed deal to deliver fuel to troops in Iraq turned into a $2.7 billion U.S. Defense Department contract. The eye-popping amount prompted one congressman to accuse Sargeant of “war profiteering” — an allegation the former U.S. Marine vehemently denied.

Further, al-Saleh’s attorneys claim, they have uncovered evidence that one of the so-called shell companies formed by Sargeant and Abu-Naba’a paid $1.5 million to the Miami law firm that represented them in the fuel contract dispute. It also paid $522,000 to attorneys who represented Sargeant in the Canadian bankruptcy case. The company also sends Sargeant $50,000 monthly to cover his myriad expenses, including the upkeep of his $7.5 million house on 3 acres along the Intracoastal Waterway in Gulf Stream.

Miami attorney Charles Throckmorton, who is representing Sargeant in the dispute, said he hadn’t had time to read the allegations al-Saleh is making in court papers. He did, however, offer a simple reason why Sargeant and Abu-Naba’a haven’t written the check: They don’t believe they owe al-Saleh any money.

“The judgment is on appeal,” he said, “and we believe the judgment is probably going to go away.” (The Palm Beach Post)