By D.R. STEWART World Staff Writer on Dec 14, 2011, at 2:33 AM Updated on 12/14/11 at 5:09 AM
Joseph James Mowry, the former secretary and general counsel of Tulsa-based Arrow Trucking Co., died early Monday at his Houston home, local authorities and a former Arrow executive said.
Mowry, 45, was found unresponsive by his wife, Sherril Roberts, officials said.
Results from an autopsy performed Tuesday won't be known for at least 24 hours, Harris County (Texas) authorities said.
Former Arrow executives who did not wish to be identified said Mowry had been a trusted adviser and key executive at the 61-year-old flatbed carrier until it closed Dec. 22, 2009.
Arrow executives filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Tulsa on Jan. 8, 2010.
On the same date, Transportation Alliance Bank of Ogden, Utah, Arrow's lender, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tulsa against Arrow, its former CEO James Douglas Pielsticker, Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Moore and Mowry, alleging fraud and racketeering that cost the bank more than $12 million.
Transportation Alliance Bank alleges in its lawsuit that in the final weeks before the company collapsed, executives at Arrow allegedly submitted false invoices to the Utah bank and received $1.8 million in emergency cash infusions to stay in business.
The Utah bank alleges that Pielsticker, Moore and Mowry violated the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act by conducting an enterprise whose activities affected interstate commercial lending activities with the bank and other aspects of interstate commerce.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants submitted thousands of fraudulent invoice reports to Transportation Alliance Bank totaling more than $27 million, of which the bank believes more than $12.5 million were inflated.
After Arrow Trucking filed its bankruptcy petition and the bank sued, Pielsticker moved to Dallas and Mowry moved to Houston. Moore is believed to be living in Texas, officials said.
Pielsticker and Mowry also were named in civil lawsuits for allegedly defaulting on promissory notes approved by People's Bank in 2007 and 2008.
A former Arrow executive said Mowry's death was "tragic" and likely brought on by the pressure of the fallout and lawsuits connected with Arrow's demise.
D.R. Stewart 918-581-8451
don.stewart@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Ex-Arrow Trucking executive is found dead at 45
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