In many of the photos posted by Lil Bill Bonan paramour Abbey Evans, this ring features prominently, leading many to think they’re married...when they’re not.
WHITE CO. – Apparently, all the effort put forth between one young lady and a philandering husband has produced little but an illegitimate child and a lot of finger-pointing, as it did nothing to assuage the acrimony between two big businesses in downstate Illinois.
For all the trouble Peoples National Bank (PNB) is going through in the federal civil court realm – being accused of creating havoc for another bank, Grand Rivers Community Bank (GRCB) – they apparently believed they didn’t need more, and so have been calling huge loans left and right.
And while the “merger” of PNB-associated William Frank Bonan II (aka Lil Bill Bonan) and Evergreen Energy-associated Abbey Evans might be official, as they’ve at least produced a child if not a marriage, the acrimony between the two entities came through in White County civil court on June 13, when PNB filed against Evergreen in order to retrieve funds PNB gave years ago to Evergreen in the form of a massive loan.
The formal complaint is called Replevin, meaning that PNB is asking the court to order Evergreen to turn over either the money fronted to them in 2010, or liquidate assets so as to be able to make good on the loan.
The Replevin is one of many cases throughout the area that PNB is filing, apparently in an effort to find some recompense for many of the allegedly-bad decisions made at the bank with Lil Bill Bonan in charge a couple of years ago and running amok between the two banks, PNB and GRCB, as well as using associates and connections in Harrisburg (where he was residing with his wife, Nicole) to create the repulsive “Chess Club” roughly two years ago, a place where attendees said that all manner of sexual activity was going on, along with alleged illicit substance use.
Authorities were looking into the club, but because it was private, they were making little progress with it (other than anecdotal information being related to them by those who partied at the location, situated atop the Clearwave building in Harrisburg) when it finally kind of lost wind in mid-2016, following month after month of Disclosure relating material creeping out of the “private gentlemen’s club.”
The exposure of the reality of the place was of keen interest to a lot of people, as evidenced by the number of public officials who took out e-Edition memberships to Disclosure’s online paper…including area judges and others.
It so happens that relatives of Lil Bill’s current paramour and babymomma, the aforementioned Abbey Evans, were also keenly interested in where coverage of the Chess Club was going, as early on (February of 2016), they, too, were subscribing to the electronic version of the paper and were reading almost exclusively just the articles about the place.
Evans is the daughter of Gary Evans, who is the brother-in-law of a White County associate judge, Mark Stanley.
With all the litigational gyrations going on between PNB and many folks in White County whose loans are being called, this “merger” between Lil Bill and Abbey Evans has posed a bit of difficulty in the ongoing filings in White County circuit court: Stanley, who ordinarily sits in on these mundane civils, cannot do so, and so generally, Franklin County judge Tom Dinn is brought in to handle them.
The filing of Replevin against Evergreen is one of those.
In the filing, PNB names as respondents Evergreen Energy LLC, a dissolved Illinois LLC; G.E. (Gary Evans) Drilling, Inc.; Evergreen Drilling LLC, an Indiana company; Axis Oil Inc., a dissolved Illinois LLC; Evergreen Properties of Illinois LLC; G.E. Services, Inc., a dissolved Illinois corporation; Kerogen Resources, Inc., a dissolved Illinois corp; and Gary L. Evans himself.
PNB claims that the debts owing to the by Evergreen Energy and G.E. Drilling, were one made on May 3, 2010 in the original principal sum of $1,351,000. They modified and extended the note wherein the principal amount of the loan was increased to $7,500,574 plus interest and other charges.
In April 2011, the note was modified again, adding Evergreen Drilling as a maker to the note.
In April 2013, PNB increased the amount of the debt by agreement among the parties to $8,192,560.70.
In June 2014, the amount increased again to $8,214,306.30, which is the final sum listed in the ever-increasing note.
Another loan then was listed as having been made on October 4, 2010, to Evergreen Energy and G.E. Drilling, this one in the original principal sum of $400,275 plus interest and other charges.
More modifications and increases were made to that loan’s terms of agreement and amount, including an April 2011 change adding Evergreen Drilling as maker. The principal amount of the debt was increased to $1,200,441 in June of 2012, April 2013 and December 2013. In April 2014 the principal amount of the debt was increased to $1,800,000 and Evergreen Energy was dropped as a maker. Ultimately, the principal amount of this loan was increased to $2,700,000.
PNB says that the notes, under the modified agreements, have matured and are fully due and payable. As of May 2, 2017, the amount of the first note, with interest and late charges, increased to $5,072,449.91, with interest accumulating at more than $532 per day.
As of the same date, the second note had reached principal and interest totals of $2,941,118.99, with interest accruing at the rate of over $327 per day.
Neither amount, pointed out PNB in court documents, reflects attorney’s fees, which they’re asking for.
In an effort to collect, PNB claims they are entitled to personal property owned by Evergreen Drilling because they’ve delivered these as security.
These include a huge list of vehicles and other equipment used in the course of oil drilling in the area.
Similar lists were produced for court files from the other companies, which, PNB claims, grants them security interest and assignment of Evans’ oil production and other property.
PNB details all of this excruciatingly in the lawsuit, stating that they also want “oil, gas and other minerals before extraction” on any property under control of the entities.
Then comes the kicker.
In paragraph 46 of the petition for Replevin, PNB states that they have been advised that the vehicles and some of the other personal property located at 645 West Highway 14, Carmi, which was the subject of a mortgage foreclosure in White County this year, was later conveyed by the deed in lieu of foreclosure to GRCB.
“PNB has been advised that the real property is to be sold by Grand Rivers to a third party on July 1, 2017, such that the personal property located at the real property must be moved prior to that date,” the filing stated.
Claiming that Evergreen has “wrongfully detained” the personal property, PNB is requesting that the court take possession of the property, both personal and real, belonging to Evans under the auspices of all his businesses, and deliver it to PNB.
Whether this sale took place on July 1 or not remains unnoted in court documents.
However, it underscores the scrambling going on between the two banks, which, under the direction of Lil Bill, were making hefty loans (some over a million dollars each) from each bank, to friends and/or cohorts of the younger Bonan over the course of about two years…until early 2016, when bank investigators came in and shut down the lending out of GRCB, ultimately assessing the situation and declaring GRCB a “troubled bank” a year ago.
Since that time, GRCB has filed a major lawsuit in federal court to try and recoup some of the damages from their proposed merger with PNB that never went through, and left GRCB hanging, as they claim in their suit.
In PNB’s countersuit, they attempt to explain what was going on…but most of it comes from allegedly questionable action taken by Lil Bill, who was behaving as a high roller across those couple of years (approximately 2014 to 2016), making random loans to people who could never pay them back.
What actually went wrong with the Evergreen aspect of it may never be known in full, but ongoing filings might uncover it.
The question of which came first, the relationship between Lil Bill and his babymomma Abbey or the relationship between the Evans dynasty and PNB, is also unknown, as Lil Bill’s divorce has been dragging through the court system in Franklin for well over a year and, despite the emergence of Baby Bonan in April, has no end in sight.
More on the multiple filings across the area by both PNB and GRCB in an effort to collect outstanding debt will be featured in upcoming issues, with the next on stands August 2.