Would You Buy A Used Law From This Man?

If you live in Louisiana's State Senate District 16, you likely know that the special election to fill that seat is this weekend, March 7th. If you got your mail today, you likely saw that candidate Lee Domingue is, at the last minute, going negative on his fellow Republican contenders with a slick mailer making vague claims that Laurinda Calongne and Dan Claitor are "Closer to the past. More dangerous then they appear."

OK, if he wants us to question the past, fair enough. Then maybe someone should ask Winston, sorry, Lee if this bit of the past shows a "proven businessman" or "a conservative reformer":

Domingue launched AppOne after returning from a failed business venture in Houston.

Domingue’s Winston Motorcars Inc., a firm that specialized in selling second-hand luxury cars, ended up in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 1996. Winston is Lee Domingue’s given first name.

The bankruptcy filing came after lender Olympic Financial Ltd. filed suit in Houston federal court accusing Domingue and his company of breach of contract. The firm provided financing for Winston car deals.

Much more on the issue at The Houston Business Journal, including this:

According to the lawsuit and former customers, the program began to develop problems early this year. Arcadia claims Domingue began to receive payments from customers but failed to turn those payments over to Arcadia. And customers say they began to get late payment notices for cars they had already sold back to Winston Motorcars.

Arcadia also claims Domingue was reselling its luxury cars without paying off customer obligation notes held by Arcadia.

When Arcadia filed suit and Winston Motorcars declared bankruptcy, several customers in the Elite Fleet were left owing on two or three cars, because Winston Motorcars had continued to make monthly payments instead of paying off the financing notes.