Embattled Sonoma real estate investor Mattson sues former business partner

In the escalating legal tussle between former close friends and business partners Ken Mattson and Tim LeFever, Mattson has struck first.

The embattled real estate investor filed a lawsuit against LeFever and the company they founded together, LeFever Mattson, in Sacramento County Superior Court on Thursday. Mattson alleges unfair competition, improper removal of a director and illegal access to corporate documents.

LeFever had announced to investors in early April that he was replacing Mattson as CEO and CFO of the company. A month later, in a scorching set of emails to investors, he accused Mattson of a raft of financial wrongdoing, including defrauding investors whose money they plowed over the past decade into more than 100 residential and commercial properties in Sonoma and the surrounding valley.

Mattson’s new legal salvo accuses his former partner of hoodwinking him into signing an improper document and, later, of “a preplanned scheme to destroy Plaintiff.”

The 17-page complaint describes a special LeFever Mattson board meeting in February called by LeFever in which he and attorney Scott Cameron Smith, who has become general counsel for LeFever Mattson, presented an 8-page indemnity agreement to Mattson and “demanded he sign on the spot.”

“Mattson did not closely examine the contents of the agreement, instead relying on LeFever and Smith’s representations at the meeting,” Mattson’s complaint reads. “However, that document, which Mattson only briefly glanced through, but did not read completely, provided egregious terms far in excess of what had been previously discussed.”

LeFever later cited that indemnity agreement in a May 9 email to investors that described “a secretive scheme by Mr. Mattson” and alerted them to a number of irregularities in the way Mattson had handled investments in a real estate investment fund run through their company Divi Divi Tree LP.

LeFever’s correspondence with investors, in which he said he’d reported Mattson to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged financial wrongdoing, was first reported by The Press Democrat.

In his civil complaint, Mattson contradicts the assertions LeFever had made to investors and puts a more benevolent spin on his use of their money in the name of Divi Divi Tree.

“During times of crisis in the real estate world, Mattson advanced personal funds to entities to allow their investors to receive money to assist their individual situations,” it reads. “ … If Mattson made personal advances, he was only repaid such advances, without interest or fees, and then only when an entity had generated a surplus, allowing for reimbursement.”

On May 24, the FBI searched one of Mattson’s homes outside of Sonoma.

A week later, on May 31, Mattson made his first public statement on the allegations made by LeFever, pointing back at the man who helped him build a real estate empire in Sonoma Valley that numbered at least 116 properties at its peak, with an estimated value of about $250 million.

“Unfortunately, a narrative is being advanced by my former business partner that is inaccurate and appears to be an attempt to discredit my hard work on behalf of the many individuals we worked for over the past decades,” Mattson wrote through Micheline Nadeau Fairbank of Oakland-based Fennemore Law.

Mattson is now selling off parts of that empire, including the iconic Sonoma Cheese Factory building on the town plaza and Sonoma’s Best deli, where Mattson had an office.

The identity of the buyers is unclear, adding to the mystery that has surrounded his real estate transactions for years.

He also put up for sale his Piedmont mansion.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @Skinny_Post.