Family feud lands in courtroom.
Brothers at venerable Chester County construction firm face criminal charges, lawsuit
WEST CHESTER >> Competing accusations of embezzlement at a venerable Chester County construction firm have landed two brothers in court, one facing criminal charges and the other a defendant in a civil lawsuit.
Mark A. Davis, the former chief executive officer at C. Raymond Davis & Sons in Kimberton, was arrested and charged last month by East Pikeland Police with felony theft by unlawful taking, access device fraud, and receiving stolen property for allegedly taking more than $300,000 in company funds just days before he was dismissed from his position at the 90-year-old company.
Three days after the charges were filed against him, Mark Davis filed a lawsuit in Common Pleas Court against his younger brother, Kyle L. Davis, the company’s chief financial officer; his father, T. Raymond “Ray” Davis, the son of the founder of the general contracting business and former owner; and the company itself, which has offices in Kimberton, Princeton, New Jersey, and Bolton Landing, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains.
Kyle Davis is themain accuser in the criminal complaint against his older brother, having told a township investigator that Mark Davis was not authorized to write a check for $308,344 to a business he owned outside the construction firm, Kimberton Company. On the other hand, Mark Davis is the sole plaintiff in the lawsuit, which generally ac- cuses his younger brother of using company funds for his own benefit, including a surreptitious bonus of $150,000.
The criminal charges against Mark Davis are scheduled for a preliminary hearing later this month at the district court in South Coventry. The civil action, which charges breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and wrongful termination, has been assigned to Judge Allison Bell Royer. No trial date has been set.
An attorney representing Mark Davis in the criminal action, Thomas Schindler of Kennett Square, said that he believed the police had become improperly involved in what essentially is a business dispute between family members. The civil suit was filed on Mark Davis’ behalf by attorneys James Sargent Jr. and Guy A. Donatelli of the West Chester lawfirm of Lamb McErlane.
“This clearly is a civil dispute,” Schindler said in an email on Friday. “We do not know or understand the justification for the filing of criminal charges; we see this as an absolute misuse of lawenforcement resources.”
An attempt to reach Kyle Davis at the firm’s home office on Friday was unsuccessful. It is not known who is representing him or the other parties in the civil action, which was filed at the Chester County Justice Center in West Chester on Sept. 23.
According to its website and court documents, C. Raymond Davis established the construction firm that bears his name in 1926, first as primarily a home builder and then later as a commercial building contrac- tor. Over the years the business expanded as the founder’s son, Ray Davis, opened Devault Contracting, which worked on high-end projects such as One Liberty Place and Veteran’s Stadium, both in Philadelphia.
In recent years, C. Raymond Davis has been the general contractor and management firm for such distinctive projects as the East Brandywine Baptist Church and the numerous new Citadel Federal Credit Union offices across the county.
Mark Davis, 59, of East Pikeland became involved in the company upon his graduation from King’s College in Wilkes-Barre. Hewas promoted to CEO in 1992, and began branching the company out into upscale residential building projects, expanding the firm’s reach from the Delaware Valley to suburban New Jersey and upstate New York. The company has approximately $50 million in annual gross receipts, according to the lawsuit.
Kyle Davis, 58, who lives less than fivemiles fromhis older brother in West Vincent, is also a graduate of King’s College. He too began work at the firm upon graduation, taking on financial duties that suited his business administration college degree. He was promoted to CFO in 1992.
The two brothers worked side by side in complimentary roles for years, each being paid the same amount of salary and having equal benefits, and sharing stock in the firm. But in the suit, Mark Davis states that over the years, he had raised “his view that Kyle Davis should be compensated only at a level reflecting his very limited contribution particularly since outside consultants … continually criticized Kyle Davis for poor accounting practices.”
On June 8, Kyle Davis contacted East PIkeland Police and ultimately spoke with Cpl. Bernard Martin about the alleged theft of funds by his older brother. In his ar- rest affidavit, Martin identified himself as a 10-year veteran police officer who has worked previously on fraud and theft cases in his capacity as a township police officer.