Seminole County seeks ex-lawmaker’s personal bank records as it tries to recoup legal fees
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Seminole County leaders are pushing to obtain the personal bank records of ex-state lawmaker Chris Dorworth in an effort to establish his liability for $432,000 in legal fees his River Cross development firm owes the county.
A year ago, a judge ordered River Cross to pony up the fees to repay much of what Seminole County spent defending itself against a failed lawsuit brought by the development firm. But the firm’s bank records showed a balance of just over $300, and Dorworth, who has said he is the sole investor in a proposed River Cross development in Seminole, told the Orlando Sentinel in November he is not responsible for the debt and has “no plans” to deposit more money in the firm’s account.
Now the county hopes it can use bank records to undermine Dorworth’s claim, County Chairman Jay Zembower said.
“There should be a money trail,” he said. “If it came from Mr. Dorworth’s bank account or if it came through one of his other companies, that should be easy to produce and it should be easy for the court to see those connections.”
The dispute stems from a 2018 vote of the county commission rejecting Dorworth’s plans for a large residential and commercial development within the county’s rural boundary. Voters had sharply limited development density in that area in a countywide referendum more than a decade earlier. Nevertheless, Dorworth’s firm sued, claiming the commission’s decision violated the Fair Housing Act.
The county is seeking records from the personal bank accounts of Dorworth, a former state House member, and his wife, Rebekah Dorworth, as well as another entity controlled by Chris Dorworth, CED Strategies, whose name bears his initials. The request includes bank statements, deposit slips, signature cards, account applications and other documents from CED Strategies and the Dorworths from Jan. 1, 2018, to the present.
Though bank records obtained by the county show that River Cross had just $306 in its account, CED Strategies funded River Cross almost entirely, attorneys for the county wrote in a recent federal court filing. And CED Strategies and the Dorworths spent more than $300,000 on legal fees in the River Cross case from 2019 to 2022, the attorneys wrote.
Chris and Rebekah Dorworth own a $1.4 million home in a gated neighborhood in Heathrow. That residence is listed as the principal address for River Cross and CED Strategies, the county’s attorneys wrote. Dorworth is the only individual listed on River Cross’s business records and he told the Sentinel in 2021 the development had no other investors.
Because of those close relationships between River Cross, CED Strategies and the Dorworths, the county should be able to obtain bank records from the firm and Chris and Rebekah Dorworth, the attorneys wrote, and ultimately receive compensation from them.
“Florida law allows creditors to collect attorneys’ fees awards against people and entities involved in the decision-making and financing of vexatious litigation, even if not named as an actual party to the underlying lawsuit,” the county’s attorneys wrote.
The filing cites an attached exhibit that gives “rise to suspicions that CED Strategies and Mr. and Mrs. Dorworth funded the vexatious litigation,” but that exhibit is sealed and not available for public viewing.
Dorworth is seeking a protective order that would prevent the county from obtaining the records. His attorneys wrote that it was likely that the county was seeking the documents “to obtain confidential information about their financial dealings” that have nothing to do with the lawsuit and that could be “weaponized” against the Dorworths.
The Dorworths are not parties in the River Cross suit, the attorneys wrote, and they “are Florida residents who have a constitutional right to privacy in their financial records.”
The attorneys added they deemed the request a “fishing expedition” and that the information the county is seeking is readily available in River Cross’s bank records, which the county already has obtained.
Chris Dorworth declined Thursday to comment further to the Sentinel about the matter.
U.S. District Judge Anne Conway dismissed the lawsuit against Seminole County from Dorworth’s firm in 2021. Last year, Conway sided with the county again, ordering the firm to pay back Seminole for the majority of the expenses the county incurred defending itself and writing that Dorworth’s attempts to invalidate the Rural Boundary were “completely unreasonable, groundless, and bordering on bad faith.”
The original proposal called for 1,370 single-family homes, apartments and townhouses, in addition to 1.5 million square feet of commercial and office space on 669 acres of old pasture land just east of the Econlockhatchee River and north of the Orange County line.
