Fair Finance Trustee Reaches Settlement With SerVaas And Son

The bankruptcy trustee for Fair Finance sought to recover $285,000 in cash transfers convicted Ponzi schemer Tim Durham made to his ex-wife, Joan SerVaas, and step-son, Bernard Durham prior to the demise of his business empire following an FBI raid in November, 2009. According to a court filing with a federal bankruptcy court, Joan and Bernard have reached a settlement with the trustee to repay $100,000 and $10,000, respectively. The trustee says that Bernard provided the trustee with a personal financial statement and supporting documentation that supposedly demonstrated his inability to repay the nearly $60,000 the trustee wanted him to repay the bankruptcy estate. Joan claimed that Durham received value in exchange for the transfers, including care for SerVaas' children, only one of whom was Durham's biological son. She also claimed that some of the transfers involved assets she jointly owned with Durham.

Joan is the daughter of multi-millionaire industrialist and former City-County Council President Beurt SerVaas, a former high-ranking OSS officer during World War II and long-time rumored CIA asset with close ties to the some of the intelligence agency's most prominent past leaders. She and her father posted a $1 million bond for Tim Durham while he awaited trial. Joan is the CEO of Curtis Publishing, one of the companies owned by her father, which publishes The Saturday Evening Post and licenses artwork.

Bernard is the biological son of SerVaas' first husband, Bernard Marie, a French immigrant who has been described as an "off-the-books" French intelligence asset. Marie, a former owner and publisher of Indiana Business Magazine, is the CEO of Penta Corporation, a business marketing and sales company that provides services to U.S. export concerns in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Marie has also been associated with a private construction firm with significant interests in Saudi Arabia. His biological son, Bernard Durham, also rumored to be an intelligence asset, was working as an obscure investigator in Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller's office at the time the FBI raided his step-father's offices. He quietly left the office shortly thereafter. Zoeller returned $11,000 in campaign contributions to the bankruptcy trustee for Fair Finance that he received from Tim Durham.