BANGOR – One of the former owners of Beacon Cadillac Oldsmobile Jeep and Eagle has filed a civil lawsuit against the lawyer and his firm who represented his former business partner. The former partner was convicted of embezzling nearly $1 million from the auto dealership.

Jerry Conn of Eddington is alleging in the nine-page defamation lawsuit that David J. Van Dyke, who practices with the Lewiston law firm of Berman & Simmons, made false and damaging statements accusing Conn and a third business partner, Joseph Gallant, of misappropriating the company’s profit-sharing funds.

Van Dyke allegedly made the statements during an interview with a Bangor Daily News reporter who was covering the federal embezzlement investigation into Christopher R.A. Walker III, who later pleaded guilty to one count of mismanaging a federally protected pension fund. Van Dyke represented Walker in that case.

Those statements, as well as Van Dyke’s allegation that Conn and Gallant were under investigation for mishandling the company’s money, were printed in the Bangor Daily News and repeated in subsequent stories about Walker’s embezzlement case.

In the suit filed Oct. 20, Conn seeks unspecified financial compensation for damages to his personal and professional reputation, presumed damages, compensatory damages and punitive damages for losses of advantageous business relationships.

Walker was Beacon Cadillac’s chief financial officer and one of its three owners when he quit suddenly in June 1998. It later was discovered that $925,000 was missing from the company. In September 1999 Walker pleaded guilty to one count of mismanaging the dealership’s pension fund. The embezzlement occurred between 1995 and 1998, according to court documents.

Shortly after Walker left the company, Conn and Gallant filed a suit in Penobscot County Superior Court in an attempt to recover some of the embezzled money.

The next October, Van Dyke told NEWS reporter Deborah Turcotte Seavey that Conn and Gallant were under investigation for mishandling the company’s profit-sharing plan and said, “It would be inappropriate to suggest that Chris Walker was involved in this any more than Mr. Conn or Mr. Gallant. … It’s a wonderful example of the pot calling the kettle black,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit claims Van Dyke made the statements to the reporter with “full knowledge of their falsity.”

Those accusations by Van Dyke caused Conn “to be held out to public ridicule” and damaged his personal and professional reputation, according to the suit filed by Conn’s attorney, Thomas Watson of Bath.

The suit further claims that Van Dyke made similar statements to the same reporter in August 1999 when Van Dyke announced that Walker would plead guilty in federal court.

The five-count lawsuit charges Van Dyke with an additional defamation count for each time the statements were reprinted in the NEWS.

Beacon Cadillac is now owned and operated by the Quirk family, which purchased it in May 1999.

The original lawsuit, which Conn and Gallant filed against Walker in June 1998, was dropped when federal charges were filed against him.

Watson said Wednesday that Van Dyke was a key participant in the criminal matter so the impact of his statements about Conn was very damaging.

“The reader is certainly going to think they can believe what they are reading because he is an attorney close to the case. Therefore the impact of his statements is much stronger than if you are just quoting someone off the street,” Watson said.

Van Dyke could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts and did not return messages.