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For failed Atlantic City loan program, big promises fizzled

FILE In this Wednesday, July 23, 2014 file photograph, a pair of bicyclists pedal past older attached homes, some with boarded windows on the north end of Atlantic City, N.J. A loan program that was supposed to lend as much as $40 million to struggling homeowners and businesses in this cash-strapped resort city has given out nothing and instead led to a federal lawsuit. Atlantic City is suing to get back $3 million it gave to the company that has failed to run the Community Loan Program, launched in 2013 by Lorenzo Langford, the mayor at the time. (AP Photo/Mel Evans,file)
FILE In this Wednesday, July 23, 2014 file photograph, a pair of bicyclists pedal past older attached homes, some with boarded windows on the north end of Atlantic City, N.J. A loan program that was supposed to lend as much as $40 million to struggling homeowners and businesses in this cash-strapped resort city has given out nothing and instead led to a federal lawsuit. Atlantic City is suing to get back $3 million it gave to the company that has failed to run the Community Loan Program, launched in 2013 by Lorenzo Langford, the mayor at the time. (AP Photo/Mel Evans,file) FILE In this Wednesday, July 23, 2014 file photograph, a pair of bicyclists pedal past older attached homes, some with boarded windows on the north end of Atlantic City, N.J. A loan program that was supposed to lend as much as $40 million to struggling homeowners and businesses in this cash-strapped resort city has given out nothing and instead led to a federal lawsuit. Atlantic City is suing to get back $3 million it gave to the company that has failed to run the Community Loan Program, launched in 2013 by Lorenzo Langford, the mayor at the time. (AP Photo/Mel Evans,file)

By Associated Press 1 min read

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) – The former chief executive of a Tennessee financial firm that was purchased by a group seeking to run a loan program in Atlantic City says he was never told of those plans.

Jim Thigpen says investor W. Wesley Drummon boasted of a business plan that involved $2 billion from the Bank of China when he first pitched buying the Tennessee Business and Industrial Development Corp. in 2012.

An Associated Press review found that Drummon’s company used $3 million from Atlantic City to buy the company. No loans have been issued and the city has sued to get its money back.

An attorney for Drummon and TN Bidco has denied the city’s claims.

The company is due in court Friday morning after it missed deadlines to deliver information to Atlantic City in the case.