United States-based law professor David P Rowe has sued the failed investment scheme Cash Plus Limited and its embattled head Carlos Hill to recover a whopping J$117 million, making his the largest suit filed so far by a disgruntled lender to the scheme.

News of Rowe’s suit emerged yesterday at about the same time that Justice Donald McIntosh ordered that Hill be imprisoned for six weeks if he does not, by June 19, disclose his assets as directed by the court last month when it ordered the freezing of his assets based on an application brought by businessman Alexander Haber.

Haber is suing Hill to recover close to $30 million he said he had invested in the ill-fated Cash Plus in October and November last year.

Rowe, a Jamaican who resides in the state of Florida, joins a long list of irate lenders who have taken legal action to recover millions of dollars loaned to Cash Plus before its recent demise.

The second highest suit filed against Cash Plus and Hill to date is a J$108 million action brought by another US lawyer, Sandra Robinson, from Houston Texas.

Rowe said in papers filed with the Supreme Court last month that he had loaned monies to Cash Plus with the agreement that he would receive a monthly interest rate of 10 per cent. During November 2006 and January 2007, Rowe said, he was provided with written loan agreements with respect to the loans.

The professor, who is the son of the late High Court judge Ira Rowe, further stated in court documents that he had, subsequent to January 2007, loaned “further sums” to the defendant but that he received no written loan agreement.

According to Rowe’s affidavit, subsequent to January 2007 the monies on the account were converted to US dollars, creating a US dollar loan arrangement and a new interest rate of 13 per cent per month added to the outstanding balance.

Rowe is charging Cash Plus with breach of contract, claiming that he had not, since January 1 this year, received any interest payment of his principal, “despite repeated requests and demands” by him and his lawyers.

According to Rowe, he is owed a balance of US$1,663,537.15 as at March 31, inclusive of principal and interest.

Rowe said that he has suffered loss and damages and incurred expenses due to the non-payment on which he is seeking 13 per cent interest per month from January 1 until payment.

The matter comes up for hearing on July 17.

Kevin Bandoian, the recent court approved receiver/manager of Cash Plus has been named as third defendant.

Yesterday’s court ultimatum to Hill was issued after lawyers from the firm Hart Muirhead and Fatta made the application for Hill to be committed to prison on behalf of Haber.

Haber, who claimed in court documents last month that Hill “induced” him to invest in Cash Plus, said he pumped both US and local currencies into the scheme with the understanding that the monies would be invested in “safe, solid and secure investment”, and that he would receive a 10 per cent monthly return on his principal. This never materialised, Haber said in court documents.

Should Hill be incarcerated in June, it would not be his first stint behind bars.

The 60-year-old Hill had, before coming to Jamaica in 2002, spent a decade in US prison for mail and loan fraud.

Hill has also spent approximately three weeks locked up at the Horizon Adult Remand Centre following his arrest on April 10 for fraud, regarding Cash Plus investors’ money. His brother, Bertram Hill, and Cash Plus’ chief financial officer Peter Wilson were also arrested and charged with fraud.

Following the arrests, the police told reporters that documents seized at Carlos Hill’s Norbrook, St Andrew residence linked a number of companies and accounts around the world to him and Cash Plus. All three are on bail.