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DENVER — Messner Reeves LLP, a self-described “premier business law firm” with eleven offices across the United States, is at the center of a widening dispute over $8.345 million in client escrow deposits that vanished from the firm’s Colorado Lawyer Trust Account Foundation (COLTAF) account in the spring and summer of 2023.

Bank statements that have been publicly filed in federal litigation show that the funds — wired into the firm’s Northern Trust trust account ending 8494 by five small businesses between April and June 2023 — were nearly entirely depleted within weeks of arrival. Yet Messner Reeves continues to maintain on its public website that “at no time have the funds at issue in the lawsuit disappeared or become lost.”

The dispute has been the subject of prior reporting by Bloomberg Law and Law360, and has spawned litigation in at least California and Utah federal courts.

The Deposits, and the Empty Account

Five plaintiff entities — Emerald Consulting Partners LLC, Kosher Eats LLC, Abbson LLC, MSC Companies LLC, and HomePeople Corporation — wired a combined $8,345,000 into Messner Reeves’ COLTAF account between April 27, 2023 and June 29, 2023 as escrow deposits in connection with so-called “Business Expansion Line of Credit” (BELOC) agreements involving INBE Capital LLC.

Northern Trust account statements that have been publicly filed as exhibits in federal litigation show the account’s daily ledger balance climbed as high as $4.2 million on June 29, 2023 — and then collapsed. By August 31, 2023, the daily ledger balance stood at just $15,405.74.

The wires out of account 8494 during that period did not go to INBE Capital. Instead, the publicly filed bank records show large transfers to entities and individuals with no apparent connection to the plaintiffs’ loan applications, including Sahara Las Vegas Corp. (more than $1.8 million in three transfers), Valley Bank of Nevada ($904,777 to settle Nevada engineering liens), Dribble Dunk LLC (a Las Vegas arena project), California car dealerships AutoNation Chrysler Dodge ($80,242) and Hoehn JLR Inc. ($414,705), and large personal-account wires to two individuals named Daniel Chartraw and Todd A. Owen.

Two Sworn Statements That Don’t Match The Bank Records

In a February 2025 affidavit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Utah (Case No. 2:24-cv-00520, ECF No. 206-2), Messner Reeves president James W. Smith swore under oath that “there were no funds remaining in the account held for INBE by July 25, 2024.”

That date is more than eleven months after the publicly filed Northern Trust statements show the account had already been emptied. The same affidavit asserts that “with the exception of Torben Welch, none of the named partners or employed attorneys at Messner Reeves, LLP had any knowledge or involvement in any of the deposits any borrowers with INBE made or any disbursements from the INBE funds.” Smith’s affidavit also acknowledges receipt of $10,070,000 across the relevant period.

The bank records and Smith’s sworn statement cannot both be accurate.