Alden

INTRODUCTION

This is Nick Alden’s sixth (at least) trip to the court of appeal (four appeals and two writ petitions) in litigation related to a Ponzi scheme masterminded by Donald Henry in the late 1980s. In 1995 Henry transferred the real property involved in the failed investment (the Ventura property) to a trust for the benefit of the duped investors. In 1996 Alden, an attorney who briefly represented Henry, obtained a judgment against him for unpaid fees, but Henry left the country before Alden could collect. In 1999 Alden recorded a judgment lien on the Ventura property, which the trustee of the trust, W.G. Realty LLC, and certain of the trust beneficiaries were able to remove by successfully prosecuting a quiet title action and obtaining a judgment against Alden in Ventura County Superior Court (the Ventura County judgment). In 2006 Division Six of this court affirmed the quiet title judgment. In 2018 Alden learned W.G. Realty LLC II (the current trustee) sold the last piece of the Ventura property for $1.2 million. Alden filed this action against W.G. Realty II and its managing member, Mark Joncich, seeking an accounting of the sale proceeds and asserting causes of action…